The start of X
by jclark775
Summary: Robin and Batman have started arguing, a lot. Robin quits? What happens next? This is based in season 1. Special thanks to KizzenNekoLuzZeBatgangYJ for making this cover!
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of the characters; they're too good to be made by me ;)

A/N: Yeah I know I said I'd update Disappearance, but I'm working on it that chapter's 1/6th of the way done. I'm writing this because I was watching some vids (Really good ones) and was hit by some inspiration enough to keep this one going for a while, but no worries I promise I'll get the chapter of Disappearance out by, at the most, the 31st of March.

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Prologue

The team had gotten back into the cave, and it had already gotten bad. Lately Robin and Batman were arguing a lot. The first time that it happened was amazing no one had ever seen Robin and Batman argue against each other, they normally just got along and were always calm with Robin joking around with him every so often. The team didn't think much of it after all they believed that Robin was Batman's son, and it was normal for parents and their children to argue every so often right? They now knew what they thought about the arguing was wrong. Batman and Robin had started arguing almost every time they were around. The latest argument had gotten intense. Robin was angry about so many things that Batman was doing.

"I'm getting tired of this Batman!" Robin said anger filling his voice. The team and even the days 'Den Mother' were either hiding or cowering some place at the intensity of their argument. "Let's continue this later, Robin." Batman ordered more than said, with huge amounts of irritation in his voice, he was also bordering yelling.

"No! You've been saying that every time we get into an argument but we never get back to discussing it and then you treat me even more like a defenseless child than you did before the argument!" Robin continued ignoring Batman's suggestion/order. "Robin, that's enough now!" Batman shouted at him getting closer to drag Robin home with him so they could continue this later.

"I SAID NO AND I MEAN IT!" Robin yelled "Either treat me how I should be treated or….." Robin started but didn't get to finish. "Robin this is silly." Batman concluded before Robin could finish. Now Batman was in front of Robin starting to drag him away. "I've had enough!" Robin said as he ripped his hand away from Batman, "I QUIT!" Robin yelled at Batman as he walked towards the Zeta-tubes. Batman went to grab Robin again and Robin gave him a upper-cut to the jaw. The upper-cut knocked over Batman because he was shocked that Robin did it and because of how much force was in it.

When he said that the members of the team, who heard, were shocked but didn't say anything thinking that it'd be better tomorrow, or that Batman would fix it later.

M'gan was the first to act she started to float to where Robin was, but she was still a little dazed at what happened. When M'gan got over to where Robin was she saw him take off his mask and replace it with a pair of shades, to still keep his identity secret, and then he threw the mask at Batman. "I'm serious Batman I'm done." Robin said in a calm tone but you could still sense the anger behind it a little. "Robin please sta-" M'gan started, but he never heard the end of that as the Zeta-tube whisked him away.

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A/N: So what did you guys think of this? I have another chapter waiting to be written on this but I can't write it until later today.

EDIT: Sorry for the Great Wall of Text that I had here earlier I didn't look at it and was concentrating on a couple things.


	2. Where?

Disclaimer: I still don't own Young Justice or any of the characters

A/N: So yep I finally got back to a computer today :D! I hope you guys like this chapter too, and I also (I tried to, and hope it worked) updated chapter one so that it is not a giant wall of text; sorry that it was didn't notice until I looked back at it. Also, thanks everyone for reviewing, subscribing, and liking my story it really made my day :D!

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**Where?**

Mount Justice POV

In Mount Justice it was still quiet; what just happened was still sinking in to everyone in there. Wally was the first to speak "Robin didn't seriously leave, did he?" Wally spoke hesitantly.

"No he wouldn't leave Batman; after all they're father and son. Plus, they've been together for a really long time as partners it's probably just a small problem that they'll work out later." Artemis said unconvincingly with a small forced chuckle, but everyone could tell that it wasn't legitimate.

"We all only assume that Batman and Robin are father and son." Superboy reminded them.

"Yeah but if they weren't father and son what else could they be?" M'gann asked.

"Uncle and nephew?" Wally offered up as a suggestion.

"Maybe, but they could also not be related at all." Kaldur said as he tried to view all possibilities, but none of the others made sense.

"Well its Batman and Robin's secret it's not like they're going to tell us." Artemis said flatly.

The mood was starting to go back to normal. "How much do you want to bet Robin's being lectured, or being grounded right now for punching Batman?" Wally said giving a small laugh thinking that everything would go back to normal, and they'd see Robin and Batman again within a few days acting like they did before they started all the arguing.

The whole group chuckled as Wally tried to imitate what Batman would look like and the gestures he would make to scold Robin for his behavior.

**Robin POV**

(A/N: This is from after he left the Mount, just to keep it clear.)

Robin had just came out of the phone booth that the zeta-tubes were locked on for his return to Gotham City, but he wasn't going to remain in just Gotham for too much longer; he was planning on grabbing his things getting on his motor cycle and high tailing it out of there. Robin ran as fast as he could while remaining in the shadows he wasn't far from the cave or the mansion, but the tricky part was getting in and out without Alfred noticing. He was going to miss Alfred, but if he went up to him and told him good bye the butler would definitely try to stop him, and alert Bruce even more, to what he was doing.

He had made it to the manor and snuck into his pitch black room without making even the slightest noise. He gathered up a bunch of clothes in a wide variety of colors from red to purple. In total he had 8 shirts all folded up, he grabbed a few pairs of pants and underpants, then he put them in a back pack. He was now ready to get the rest of his tuff that he'd need. He grabbed his extra retractable-extendable bo staff, so that he'd have both of them for extra precaution. He also went and grabbed all of his extra birdarangs (he does use birdarangs right?) and extra utility belt. Then next was the grappling hook he really need that incase the other one broke. He looked for all of Batman's tracking devices on the stuff. He found what looked like all of them, and then he hacked into them and messed with their systems to make it say that he was in a different area than he was. He dropped them all off in different parts of the Bat Cave and grab his motor cycle. He thought it was weird that he didn't here Alfred anywhere in the manor, but he just thought that maybe Alfred decided to turn in early.

He got on the motor cycle and deactivated its tracking device too. Then he packed all of the stuff into the hidden trunk that was on the cycle. The extra utility belt was on him like a sash; now he was ready to go. He got off his bike grabbed his wallet that he had secretly hidden in the cave. He had hid it there so that he could have at least some money of his own in a safe place so that he could use it in an emergency "Now's as good as a time as even." Robin said quietly to himself. Robin had several thousands of dollars hidden in that wallet since he had been working on it for four years.

Now Robin was completely ready. He grabbed the remote for the cave door opener and opened it just enough to get through it. Robin shut it behind him and revved it up going as fast as he could through the uncrowded back streets of Gotham. He didn't know where he was going to go, but he knew everywhere he wasn't going to be, and Gotham was one of them.

**Batman POV**

'I can't believe he punch me.' Batman thought to himself bitterly. He had left the Mountain 20 minutes after Robin had so that Robin could cool down a little before he would scold him for what he did.

Batman had gotten out of the phone booth slowly and walked towards the Cave in the shadows. That's when he heard a robbery in progress, that's when he knew that tonight was going to be a long night.

_Little did the Dark Knight know that when he got home he would be all alone (well practically)._

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A/N: So was this chapter good to you guys? Did I improve on the huge wall of text? I'm sorry if I didn't improve on the text wall though.

In other news; this is my fastest update ever :D!


	3. Realization

Disclaimer: I'm never going to own Young Justice or any of the characters

A/N: I'm happy that you guys seem to like the story so far.

'" means them talking to each other in their minds.

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**Realization **

Mount Justice

The group was all together siting on the couch watching TV and waiting to hear the machine recognize Robin and Batman. When they heard the machine recognize Batman come in they all turned and expected to hear it recognize Robin too, but when they didn't hear it go off they were all confused.

"You're all going to be using today as a training day." Batman said plainly as he walked over to computer in the room.

"Ok, but where's Robin?" Wally asked first. All of them were wondering it, but he was the first one to get it out.

"Go to the training hall to begin you self-training day, or we can have Black Canary come in here and go through one of her training regimes." Batman ordered.

"Ok we'll go." Kaldurr said calmly as him and the rest of the team went to the training room.

'"Isn't it weird that we are getting a self-training day?'" Artemis questioned.

'"It is, and it's also weird that Robin isn't with him." Wally said as he tried to figure out why Robin wasn't present.

"'Maybe he got punished by Batman to not be allowed to come here for a while since he upper cut him in the jaw."' Connor offered up as a solution.

"Yeah maybe." Kaldurr agreed.

**Batman's POV**

If they would've looked at what Batman was doing on the computer they would've known why Robin wasn't there. Batman's computer in the Bat Cave wasn't able to track any of the tracking devices that were on Robin. Batman thought Robin might have gotten rid of the tracers, but he wasn't sure anymore since he was still getting a read from them all saying that he was in Metropolis. He suspected that maybe Robin messed with them but he was still going to check it out. Batman closed and blocked everything he looked at from being able to be seen by others, and then he left to go check Metropolis.

**Robin's POV**

Robin had just driven into a new city, Jump City. He wasn't going to stay long, but some of the materials he needed for his plan of a new suit were in this city. Robin had changed out of his uniform into some civilian clothes and sun glasses in the wilderness in a secluded area. Then he painted his R-Cycle into a regular blue motor cycle. He walked into a regular convenience store and bought some hair dye; he was going to turn himself into a dirty blonde, just so that it would be harder to notice that he was originally Dick Grayson.

Dick Grayson had paid for the hair dye and he went into a public bathroom and sat inside one of the stalls long enough while following the directions on the box. His hair was not a sandy blonde which didn't resemble his old black hair at all. When he walked outside and walked down an alley to head toward the edge of town. That is when a group of 3 teenage boys confronted him.

"Give us your money." one of the boys said, he was wearing a black ski mask to cover his face, and had a knife in his hand.

"Or what?" Robin asked uninterested.

"Or else!" the thug shouted at him.

"Is that the only reason?" Robin asked bored of this thug already, he had to get back to his stuff to finish making his plans for the new suit he was going to make.

"Give it now!" The thug said as he lunged at Robin. Robin side stepped the thug, and put out his foot, tripping him making him fall into a wall.

"You son of a-"the thug started but was cut off when Robin threw the other two thugs on top of him.

"It's been fun talking to you, but now I have to go." Robin said with a sly grin on his face.

Robin ran into the shadows and got to his bike. He ran and jumped into the seat and drove his motor cycle into an ex-bike shop. It had gone into bankruptcy and the owners were forced to close, so he had gotten it at an extremely low price, it also helped that the property value was pretty low too. Robin went inside it was a normal bike shop. It had a variety of them anything from a regular bike to a motor bike. The room was a display room, but it was mostly clear, there were still motor cycles inside the display room. He walked over to the desk in the corner of the room, and pulled out a couple pairs of blueprints.

The first pair of blueprints was about a high tech suit powered by the chemical compound Xenothium, it was dangerous but it'd make it nearly impossible for the team and hard for Batman, to recognize that he was Robin. He still needed to work out a name for it though, and find how to safely transfer the Xenothium to every part of the suit, but going off Batman's designs for another type of suit that involved a power source, he had figured out mostly how to transfer it. The suit would have camouflaging abilities, along with being able to make a variety of weapons from different points on the body; the suit would lock in heat so he couldn't be detected by thermal censers.

The other plans were for a new motor cycle. The motor cycle would be powered by a vapor that wouldn't make exhaust. He based it off of other designs he had seen so that he could make the system make the vapor, then condense it so it could use it again. He also planned on having the cycle have a camouflaging system too, along with the heat same cloaking device. It would be revolutional for hiding his equipment and keeping undiscovered by adversaries.

**Young Justice POV**

"So when do you think we'll be seeing Robin again?" M'gann asked the group.

"Whenever Bats decides to let him I guess." Artemis said even though they didn't even know if that was the real reason Robin wasn't there.

"Yeah, but its Robin were talking about everyone knows that Batman will probably let up on the punishment within the next few days." Wally said concluding it. "Then we can rub in his face that we got a free day!" Wally added with a grin forming on his face.

**Batman POV**

'Robin messed up my tracers' Batman finally concluded in his head as he had reached the area it said Robin was at, but there was no one remotely similar to him in the area. Plus, as soon as he got to the area the tracer said he was on the other side of town, then when he got there it said Robin was in Star City, and Batman knew for sure that Robin couldn't move that fast.

That's when Batman decided to go back to Gotham to continue the search through some other means.

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A/N: So how was this chapter? Please review I appreciate your opinions on the story :D.


	4. Trip to Happy Harbor

Disclaimer: Like I've said before I'm never going to own Young Justice :'(, Lol well I'm just fine writing fanfics about it :)

A/N: Thanks everyone for reviewing and alerting this story it's nice to know that you guys like the story :)

I hope you all enjoy this chapter like the others.

Also on a side note if there is any spelling errors or something then sorry, because I wrote this on notepad which doesn't have spell check.

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**Trip to Happy Harbor **

**Robin POV**

Robin had just woken up on the nice little black leather couch-bed he had bought, and put in yesterday. It was actually quite cozy to sleep on. Robin yawned and stretched out, then he went and looked at the clock he had put on his desk. The clock told him that it was only 5:25 in the morning.

"Wow it's still pretty early." Robin said to himself out loud.

"Well might as well continue with the blueprints." Robin decided as he started making decisions of modifications to the suit and its unfinished design. He started to get a frenzy of new ideas to include on it. He would include the rebreather equipment in 2 pockets on his belt (the second is a spare) while still including his other equipment in the other pockets. He had even found how to get the middle of the belt operational to supply the rest of his suit with the chemical Xenothium to power the suit with a massive amount of abilities. Robin had even figured out the name of this new suit and hero persona Red X it had all came to him last night.

Robin did see a small problem with getting the power source though. He couldn't get the special type of Xenothium he was looking to use to power the suit anywhere except Happy Harbor. This type of Xenothium was adapted from the original compound to be able to replenish itself it would take several hours for it to refill itself if he used all but a couple drops of it though. Robin didn't want to go to Happy Harbor so soon after disappearing though in case he would get discovered already, but the shipment would be in later today so he had to go, plus his hair was a different color, they had never seen his eye color, and he realized that he had grown a little since he was last measured.

'There just might be a chance that none of them will recognize me if they see me.' Robin thought hopefully. After all they had known a raven haired Robin not a dirty blonde, blue eyed teenager, but he was still thinking about wearing some contacts that changed his eye color(just for that extra measure of assurance.) He realized that some of Batman's paranoia had rubbed off on him but that wasn't such a bad thing after all. He would need to spend quite a bit of money on the Xenothium and to finish his suit and equipment, but it was worth it, plus he would still have a lot of money left four years of saving cash does wonders.

**Young Justice POV**

At Mount Justice it was actually pretty quiet today. Wally was out with the Flash, Super Boy was watching static with Aqualad (they were really bored), M'gann was trying to bake cookies, and Artemis was with Zatanna in the hangar.

**Zatanna and Artemis POV**

"I can't believe your dad let you come over today." Artemis said pretty impressed with how Zatanna had finally gotten her dad to give in.

"Yeah it took a while but he finally gave up." Zatanna said with a giggle as she was proud of her work. "Hey wait I just noticed something!" Zatanna said as she finally figured out what the odd feeling she had gotten when she arrived was.

"Yeah, what did you notice?" Artemis asked slightly confused.

"Where's Robin? I mean I know he isn't here early every day but its 12:00, and he still isn't here." Zatanna asked confused.

Artemis giggled at what Zatanna said, which made her even more curious. "He upper cut Batman a few days ago, and he hasn't been here for a while; I think he was grounded." Artemis answered.

"Whoa Robin actually hit Batman was it a sparring match or something?" Zatanna asked with concern for the mysterious duo.

"Yeah, but it wasn't a sparring match it was a really bad argument. Don't worry too much about it though you know how those two are they probably already have it fixed up, and Robin will probably show up back at the cave in no time." Artemis said trying to sway away her concern.

"Oh well ok I guess." Zatanna replied even though she still was concerned for Robin, although she was willing to drop the topic for now.

"So want to go out on the town?" Artemis asked Zatanna hoping for a yes.

"Sure." Zatanna said with a huge grin forming on her face.

"Ok go grab a motor cycle. Actually why don't you use Robin's Mount Justice motor cycle after all he doesn't need it, and he wouldn't mind." Artemis offered with a grin, after all Artemis knew how much Zatanna liked the Boy Wonder.

"Ok." Zatanna said as she walked over and got on Robin's motor cycle. She hid a little of her excitement over being allowed to ride Robin's cycle.

"Let's go!" Artemis said happily as they drove out of the cave in their civilian clothes.

**Robin POV**

Happy Harbor

'Heh that was easier than I thought it'd be.' Robin thought with a big grin. He had thought that it'd be harder to get this Xenothium in the very same town as his old team, but it was surprisingly easy. It wasn't illegal anyways it was just a small little deal of half a vile the regenerative Xenothium, nothing more than that. Robin put on his red motor cycle helmet, and got on his matching racing motor cycle it was red with black racing stripes on the sides, but it was just a normal motor cycle with a special trunk that he added on to contain the Xenothium.

He drove out of the shipping areas storage dock, and to the stop sign. He turned the corner headed away from the mountain. He got to the light, it was red, and that's when he saw them Zatanna and Artemis on motor cycles not too far from him in a turn lane that'd connect their lane to the one he was going to be on. He was slightly nervous but that's when he noticed that it was only them, if they knew about him being here then there'd be more than just those two.

Artemis was riding her dark green motor cycle with its matching helmet, and he saw that Zatanna was riding his old motor cycle and wearing his helmet. It had actually made him grin a little seeing her having fun, and using his motor cycle. The light changed and he drove through Zatanna and Artemis merged at the same time and they were right behind him. He was still slightly nervous about them being right there.

**Artemis and Zatanna POV**

"Hey Zatanna see that sweet ride over there." Artemis said as she admired the sleek and swift motor cycle in front of them.

"Yeah? What about it?" Zatanna questioned not understanding the look Artemis was throwing the vehicle.

"Doesn't it look sweet? I wonder if they have it in green." Artemis said still admiring it.

"I guess it does. Why don't you ask him where he bought it at?" Zatanna answered and threw out the suggestion.

"Yeah let's go do it!" Artemis said grinning happily. "How much do you want to bet that it costs a lot?" Artemis questioned hoping that it wouldn't be as expensive as she thought it would be.

"A lot." Zatanna said not reassuring her at all.

Zatanna and Artemis sped up and were on both sides of Robin, with Zatanna on his right and Artemis on his left.

"Hey there!" Zatanna said with a sheepish grin, but he wouldn't be able to see it through her helmet. "Can we ask you a few questions about your motor cycle?" Artemis said really hoping for a yes.

"Sure I guess it couldn't hurt." Robin said as he relaxed that they didn't know who he was.

"We should probably stop somewhere and talk there." Zatanna said as she suggested the easiest course of action.

"Ok I guess." Robin replied easily. "How about over there?" Robin said as he pointed at a empty lot not far away.

"Ok!" said Artemis happily

**At the lot**

"So where did you get that motor cycle?" Artemis questioned as she got off her cycle and removed her helmet.

"From a motor cycle shop near Jump City." Robin answered easily.

"Hi my names Zatanna and that's Artemis." Zatanna said nervously as she got off her motor cycle and removed her helmet too.

"Well it's nice to meet you two, so do you have any other questions?" Robin asked trying to dodge giving a name.

"Yeah how much did it cost?" Artemis asked quickly "and do they have it in green?"

"They might, but I'm not sure how much it costs, it was a gift to me." Robin answered giving half of the truth after all he probably did have a green version at the shop, and it was in the shop when he bought it.

"So what's your name and are you going to take off your helmet." Zatanna said innocently.

"I'll let you wonder about my name, but I will take off my helmet." Robin said with a big grin looking at them as he took off his helmet revealing his dirty blonde locks and his baby blue eyes.

'Wow he's pretty cute.' Zatanna thought 'Almost as cute as Robin.' She finished her thought with a grin.

"Is something on my face?" Robin asked as he saw Zatanna staring at his face with a grin.

"Oh no it's nothing!" Zatanna spat out fast with a quick blush growing on her face.

"Hey do you two want to have a race later today?" Artemis said out of nowhere.

"Um depends when?" Robin and Zatanna said at the same time. They looked at each other then back at Artemis.

"Why?" Artemis said not understanding.

"I have to leave town pretty soon." Robin said. "And I have to know when because my dad will come and pick me up later." Zatanna said since it was obvious.

"Is around 2:00 good? We can even have some referees for the 3 of us racing out there." Artemis said happily as she thought of the rest of the team refereeing them.

"Maybe." Robin said with a small smile.

**Batman POV**

At the Bat Cave Batman was irritated and looking at a broken keyboard, and a broken screen that he'd have to replace. He was so irritated over not being able to find Robin by now that he had thrown the keyboard through the screen. The screen still worked, but he had to fix the part the keyboard went through and the keyboard itself. He knew Alfred would probably talk to him later about letting his anger out on something else, but Alfred would understand why he did it.

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A/N: So do you guys like what I did with this chapter? I made it pretty long compared to the other 3, and I did it in one siting :D! Please review, and thanks for the reviews you've given so far I've enjoyed reading them. If there's any wall of text I didn't notice I'm sorry.

Also thanks CHiKa-RoXy for answering my question.

So do you guys want to read about Robin, Zatanna, and Artemis racing through empty parts of the city?


	5. The Big Race

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice at all.

A/N: Thanks for reviewing again guys :D!

I'm sorry but I switched the outskirts of town into a really sharp turning race track( it was easier to write this way sorry.)

ShadeTail43 Yeah I guess I did, lol I didn't even notice until you mentioned it, but it was unintentional though. Also if Wally used his super speed to referee then that'd reveal their powers after all they don't know that he's Robin :P, lol.

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**The Big Race**

At an abandoned race track

"So how long is this race going to be?" Zatanna and Robin asked at the same time.

"We're going to go around three times and the third lap is the final one. Whoever comes in first on it wins." Artemis said with a grin

The track was huge, and had some tunnels on various parts around it. The last part of the track had a giant tunnel around it.

"They are going to referee this race." Artemis said as she pointed over to Aqualad and Wally. "His name is Wally, and his name is Kal." Artemis said motioning to each of them as she said their names. Wally and Kaldur didn't see Robin's face because he was wearing his helmet already.

"Well it's nice to meet you guys. So um can we get this started, because I have to get going really soon?" Robin said with slight urgency.

"Ok sure. So are you two ready to lose?" Artemis said cockily with a big grin on her face.

"We'll see who wins." Robin said calmly as he got on his motor cycle, and looked at Zatanna, but she didn't notice. Robin was thinking about the best plan of action.

"READY! SET! GO!" Wally shouted and watched them all take off at full throttle.

Robin was fighting for the lead with Artemis, but Zatanna was staying back, not too far but she still wasn't cranking her machine up to maximum speed. Robin took the lead with Artemis hot on his tail as he entered the tunnel. When they exited the tunnel Artemis lead the way and around the first corner.

The first lap had Artemis in the lead, and then the second lap was won by Robin, with Zatanna staying in last for each of the laps. They were now reaching the last tunnel of the third lap. That is when Zatanna made her move. Robin was in first several feet ahead of Artemis, and Zatanna finally cranked it into full speed! Zatanna used the tunnels circular sides to zoom right past Artemis, and then used her momentum to catch up to Robin. As they reached the end of the tunnel Zatanna's momentum pushed her into the lead (the fact that Robin intentionally slowed down a little without her noticing helped too), and she won the race!

Zatanna crossed the line and came to a stop. Then Robin pulled up next to her, and then Artemis.

"Good job. The race was close and the best person won." Robin said cheerfully without taking off his helmet.

"Yeah that was fun, but did you have that planned from the start Zatanna?" Artemis said in agreement and asked.

"Yeah I thought it'd be cool to do." Zatanna answered with a grin.

"Well I have to go or I'm not going to make it back before dark, bye." Robin said as he floored it through the entrance of the abandoned race track, and out into the clear streets leading away from Happy Harbor.

"He was an interesting person." Artemis stated.

"Yeah, but he seemed to be in a rush." Zatanna noted.

"Yeah, and I still want one of those cool bikes." Artemis added with a grin.

**Robin POV**

Back at Robin's shop

Robin had just arrived back at the shop. He was tired from that race earlier, and he was pretty happy that they didn't notice who he was while he was with them. Robin walked over to his motor cycle and opened the special trunk he made for the Xenothium and pulled it out.

'Heh I finally have the power source for my suit' Robin thought to himself with a huge grin coming to his face.

Robin brought it over to his desk and pulled out the special grey belt that was mostly complete. The only things missing from his belt was the equipment that he was going to put into the pockets and the core being put into the center. Robin then put the power source into the special Xenothium container in the center of the belt. Now it would be able to transfer the Xenothium to the rest of the suit, but first Robin needed the suit to be completed before he could test its abilities.

Robin grabbed the equipment that he was going to put into the pockets of the belt. 'Ok now double check.' Robin thought to himself. 'Ok red smoke pellets, an X-grappling hook, two red extending-retracting staffs, a few non-Xenothium made X-shuriken, the two rebreathers, Taser, back up X-grappling hook, and last but not least X shaped tracking devices(you know sort of like Batman's homing device that he throws and lets him find the people he puts them on.)'

Robin was planning on hooking them up to the holographic computer that he was going to have in the arm plate of his X suit. Then he planned on having his lock picking tools in the same compartments as on his Robin suit. He was going to have the mask have infer-red sensors in the eye spots, and the hand plates have big red x's on them with a matching one on the mask, and on the chest over the Kevlar that he would have. The mask would be a skull, since he thought that it'd help strike some fear into criminals when they saw him, especially late at night.

**Mount Justice**

"So how did your race go?" M'gann asked cheerfully as they returned. "I also baked some cookies for everyone." M'gann said with a cheerful smile.

"It was fun, and thanks for the cookie." Zatanna said happily as she grabbed a nice fresh chocolate chip cookie.

"MMMM they're so delicious M'gann." Zatanna said as she took her first bite.

"Thanks I worked hard on them." M'gann said proudly. "So who won?"

"That'd be Zatanna." Artemis answered as she came into the room from the hangar.

"Good job Zatanna! What place did you get Artemis?" M'gann asked innocently.

"Um.. Last." Artemis said slightly embarrassed that didn't come in at least second.

"Well all that matters is that you tried your best, and had fun." M'gann said trying to make her feel better.

"Yeah plus it was really close." Zatanna said trying to help out, after all the race was close throughout the whole run.

**Batman POV**

Batman was scouring the streets of Gotham at a fast pace. He just assisted in catching and locking up 10 thugs that were breaking into the jewelry store. Unfortunately for them they were the ones he let some of his steam out on. Alfred had talked to him about his anger, but as he expected Alfred understood (after all when didn't he?) so he had decided to blow off his steam on some more criminals to take a small break from trying to find a lead on Robin.

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A/N: So what do you guys think of this chapter? I made it sort of like a 2 separate chapters in one, because I didn't know how to really go in-depth with a race, and because I thought he should get back to his place before wrapping it up. Plus the little Batman POV at the end to show what's happening on his side.

Also like the twist with the race winner? After all it helped keep his identity safe-ish .


	6. Test Run

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of the characters.

A/N: YEAH NEW YJ! So it's finally off hiatus which is awesome . Thanks everyone for reviewing it's nice to hear you guys like the story. Honestly your comments made my day :D

Mixxi I'm not too sure I've been searching for it, but all I'm finding from a bunch of sites it that the Holo Comp is in his arm-plate and it didn't specify where the lock picking stuff was, but I guess that's because he and Batman have it all over them.

InvisibleNinja1234 Yeah he's going to keep the blonde hair it'll become part of his cover for a while I think.

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**Test Run**

Robin had been checking through the incomplete suit, his 'Red X' persona, for a couple minutes now. The suit was almost complete, and he was proud of his handy work if he did say so himself. Robin looked at the mask. The mask was now nearly finished he just had to add the lead lining so that Superman couldn't see through the mask, just in case he came face to face with him, and the voice changing system. Robin also took the time to make an under-mask just in case someone ever successfully gets the first one off of his face.

Robin just needs to buy a couple more materials to finish his cycle that had a lead blanket over him; he really didn't want anyone peeping in on what he was making.

**Young Justice**

Zatanna was told that she would be allowed to stay the night for a couple nights, at the Mountain. Zatanna and Artemis had been hanging out non-stop for the past while she was there. They were having a blast.

"Hey Zatanna do you know why your dad has been letting you come here so much lately?" Artemis asked causally.

"No I have no clue. So are Batman and Robin coming today?" Zatanna asked hopeful.

"I doubt it, after all Batman seems to be really focused on a case, and he is actually not giving in on Robin's punishment it seems." Artemis answered unfortunately.

"Oh." Zatanna said plainly, but you could hear the slight sadness about the given answer in her tone.

"Don't worry I believe that the punishment, whatever it is, will be over soon." Artemis said hoping to cheer her up.

"Yeah, I hope so." Zatanna said slightly more hopeful.

"I know why don't we go check out that shop that, that kid said he got his from." Artemis said cheerfully.

"How about we just go to the Mall instead?" Zatanna offered, because she really didn't want to spend her day at a cycle shop in another city.

"Fine, but can we go check it out later? Please?" Artemis begged hopefully.

"Maybe." Zatanna said with a grin on her face.

**Batman POV**

Batman was rushing through the street's shadows. He was after a thief that had just ran away, like they always do.

"Why make it so hard?" Batman questioned in his usual irritated tone.

"AH! Batman stay back I'm warning you!" The thief said with terror evident in his voice.

"Or what?" Batman asked already tired of listening to his weak threat.

The thief pulled out a knife. "Or I'll stab you." The thief said trying to sound menacing. The thief ran at Batman, but Batman easily caught the thief's hand forced him to drop the knife, and quickly put hand cuffs on him

**Robin **

Robin knew the suit wasn't complete, but he felt that he should take it for a test run to see just how well it worked. Robin first used the teleporting feature to get on top the cities bank. 'That's one green check for the suit.' Robin thought happily to himself.

'Ok now I have to test out the other features.' He as he decided what to choose next. 'Camouflage.' He decided. Right after he chose his form disappeared in the dark shadows.

'Now what can I test the shuriken on?' He thought to himself. Just then a robbery of the bank he was on. Robin grinned 'Found my target.' Robin kept his camouflage up, and teleported inside the bank. The villain was just some older looking dude.

"I'm Dr. Light" the guy shouted with annoyance in his voice. "Does it ring any bells?" When no one answered it made him angry. Dr. Light raised his hands and made bolts of light appear, and aimed it at one of the civilians.

Robin didn't want to chance his voice being recognized so he didn't speak. Robin just used his camouflaging ability, and stayed in the shadows. Then he sprang into action he shot out a restrictor X around Dr. Light's body and two adhesive X's to cover up his hands.

"Who's there!" Dr. Light shouted at whoever it was who shot at him, but Robin had already left as the cops came in and carried Dr. Light off to prison.

Robin was proud of himself majorly now, because his suits functions were working perfectly for him. Robin went home in the back room and tested the other functions there, and they all worked.

'Yes it's a success!' Robin was so happy he almost shouted his joy into the rooms of the cycle shop. Robin was going to get his own lair under the shop in the future. 'This is just great once the mask gets all of its features then Red X would finally make a real debut (is that correct spelling?) to the crime of the city.' Robin knew it wouldn't take long to get the lead coating on the mask, or the suit (well if you're going to coat one why not both?), and getting the voice modifier on the mask would be simple once he got the materials. His debut wasn't going to take long. He was happy, and proud about the suit working properly so he figured that deserved something nice. Robin decided that he'd take a nice long ride on his motor cycle, and then go to sleep after he came back.

**Mount Justice**

It was only Wally, Kaldur, M'gann, and Connor inside the Mountain, but that was enough to have a good conversation.

"So how much longer do you think until Robin comes back? This has been one of his longest punishments yet, and he hasn't had any form of communication with any of us since he left that day." Wally said unhappily.

"Yeah that isn't like Robin. Usually even if he's been punished he has some form of communication with at least one of us and he hasn't yet." M'gann said with a frown.

"Batman must really be cracking down on Robin then." Connor said, slightly amazed. After all Robin's punishments weren't ever long lasting, and he did get communication with them secretly usually.

"Yeah. Normally Robin's punishments are over by now." Kaldur added with agreement.

Artemis and Zatanna walked in a couple of minutes later. That's when they heard a voice over the speakers. "Team come to the briefing room." The voice was ordering.

When the team got to the briefing room they saw Batman standing in his usual spot, and Superman standing next to him.

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A/N: So how did this chapter turn out? Also the latest (hopefully) the next chapter that will be out is the 20th of March, but if I finish the thing I have to work on, or make a lot of progress on it, then I'll work on more chapters during the week. So the latest the next release is will be the 20th, but I may have one out within the next few days.

So please review, and for everyone that did, and alerted (favorite), thank you! :D


	7. Out of the Bag Big Debut

**A/N:** Hey I just couldn't hold off on writing this one, because I've had too good of ideas for this and next chapter.

**Disclaimer: **We all already know that I don't own Young Justice; if I did I'd be a genius :D.

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**Out of the Bag/Big Debut**

Mount Justice Briefing Room

"Do we have a mission?" Kaldur asked as the team, and Zatanna, came through the door.

"No, not yet anyways." Superman said as he looked towards Batman.

"So what'd you call us in here about then?" Artemis said abruptly.

"You have a new member to the team." Batman said as he looked toward Zatanna.

Zatanna was flabbergasted, and completely unaware that he dad was actually going to let her join.

"Oh my god this is awesome!" Zatanna managed to get out. She, along with the rest of the team, had a huge grin on her face.

"Alright that means we now have 8 members." Wally said with the biggest grin in the room.

"Not exactly." Superman said nervously.

"What do you mean?" The entire team questioned.

"I think Batman should be the one to tell you." Superman said to dodge their stares.

"Batman what did he mean?" Kaldur said seriously.

"Robin's not on the team anymore." Batman said plainly.

"WHY JUST BECAUSE HE PUNCHED YOU?" Artemis nearly shouted out angrily. The entire team was mad; everyone assumed the same thing.

"No, because Robin is gone." Superman said in Batman's defense before it got out of hand.

"What do you mean?" Kaldur said calmly.

"He means exactly what he said." Batman said indifferently, even though on the inside he was still irritated about it.

"D-do y-you mean he's dead?" M'gann spitted out, hoping for a no.

"He's not dead. He disappeared." Superman said grimly.

"He gathered his stuff, and left before I got back the day he punched me." Batman said recalling the night Robin left.

"What? No way!" Zatanna said in shock, just like how most of the team felt.

"It's all true. Batman's been trying to locate him, but Robin's successfully left tons of false leads, and has made it extremely hard to find him." Superman said grimly.

'Why? Why would he do that? Why'd he leave without a good bye? How didn't we see this?' Were questions that everyone on the team was wondering.

"Everyone's dismissed you can go back to what you were doing." Batman said out of nowhere. With that the team all went back to the living room couch, and turned on the news as they took in what just happened.

On the news was a report about a bunch of super villains taking an entire conference room, full of citizens and a mayor in Jump City, hostage and they would only let them go if their demands were met. The news said the villains were called Jinx, Gizmo, Mammoth, and Cinderblock.

"We should go help." Wally said as he was about to get up.

"Yeah." The rest of the team agreed as they all started to get up, but right as they did one of the villains were shot out of the building covered in a red substance.

Red X POV

Red X had heard what was happening over the police radio frequency and burst into action. He got changed and teleported to the roof of the building. Once he was on top of the building he went into camouflage mode.

"It's time to make my big appearance." Red X said to himself with a big chuckle; he really liked how cool the new metallic voice was.

Red X teleported inside, still in camouflage mode, and wasn't noticed. Red X observed the 4 villains in from of him. A short kid with a technological backpack on, a big cinderblock bodied guy, a guy with big muscles but didn't seem too smart, and a girl with pink hair. Red X jumped into the air, went un-camouflaged, and shot out an electric X onto the kids backpack, which rendered it useless, with one hand, and using his other he shot the kid with a constrictor X. After that Red X dropped one of his smoke pellets to cover the room with his red smoke.

Then Cinderblock attacked random objects trying to find the guy who attacked. When the smoke cleared it was revealed that Mammoth was also taken down. He was covered with an adhesive X and stuck on a wall. Cinderblock charged full speed at Red X, and Jinx started shooting her purple aura at him.

"Not much into team work, are you?" Came Red X's metallic voice.

"Shut up." Was all that was replied to him.

Cinderblock had hit Red X, which knocked the wind out of him, but Red X teleported above Cinderblock and did an aerial kick to Cinderblock's head. Cinderblock was knocked to the ground but got back up, and countered with a punch, but Red X was smart enough to teleport out of the way. He had teleported onto Cinderblock's shoulder and shot his eyes with some restrictive X to block his view. That's when Jinx shot at Red X again, but Red X jumped off of Cinderblocks shoulder and it hit Cinderblock square in the face.

Red X then used his chance to shoot four huge adhesive X's to keep Cinderblock down. Jinx was the last one left. Jinx started to bolt it to escape, but as soon as she got the door open he shot her with a restrictive X.

"Uh who are you?" The mayor asked nervously, because of how Red X looked, after all who wouldn't be nervous when they saw a guy in a skeleton mask, which looked very much like a villain himself, save a bunch of people.

"My names Red X." Red X said plainly.

"Thank you for saving all of us Red X. We owe you a debt of gratitude; are you going to be staying in Jump City?" The mayor asked hopeful.

"Yes." Was all Red X said as he disappeared before everyone's eyes.

At the shop

"YES YES YES YES YES YES!" Red X shouted out into his shop triumphantly.

"I can't believe I did it! Plus it was so successful, and such a big thing. This was definitely the best way for X to come into the crime fighting business." Red X said after he changed back into his pajamas, and put his Red X suit back into its hiding spot.

"This was a great day." Red X said to himself with the biggest smile ever, and climbed onto his bed, pulled up the covers and fell to sleep.

At the Mountain

"The super villains that had held the conference room captive were just beaten by a new, unheard of, hero who calls himself Red X," The report said happily.

"Wow looks like that was handled pretty fast." Connor noted bluntly.

"Yeah." Everyone on the team agreed.

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**A/N: **So what did you think about his big debut? I had an idea for next chapter that wasn't bad (at least I don't believe it is), but I don't know if I'll be able to type it out within the next few days.


	8. Protector

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Young Justice.**

**A/N: **I am happy that you guys like this story. Your reviews honestly make it easier to write this so thank you all.

'Means thinking to themselves

"Means talking

'" means mind convo

Enjoy the chapter :D

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**Protector**

Over the next couple days after Red X's debut he had been assisting on any crime that the Police wouldn't be able to do on their own successfully, or handle without any casualties, and then the Mayor and papers already gave him a label. The title that he received was 'The Guardian of Jump City!' That was at least what the Mayor, tons of citizens, and even the paper had started to call him anyways.

**Mount Justice POV**

On the news was an article about the mysterious hero Red X who has been names 'The Guardian of Jump City' since he's been saving citizens and locking away villains left and right.

"Wow he's on a roll!" Wally noted impressed.

"Yeah he's been helping out a ton! Why hasn't the league talked to him or something?" M'gann questioned.

"It's because not every hero gets invited into the league, and I think that they probably have requirements to get into it." Artemis answered not a 100 percent sure.

"Well he has been doing a lot of work since he debuted." Connor said plainly.

"Team come to the briefing room." They heard over the intercom.

As the team entered the room it was a similar scene to the other day Superman and Batman were both standing in the same area.

"Team you have a mission." Batman told them like he usually did.

"And Batman will be with you to supervise." Superman added in.

The team was surprised since Batman never came on a mission with them.

"What is the mission and where is it at?" Kaldur questioned.

"Some villains stole a dangerous chemical, and are planning to use it to power a machine. We don't know what the machine is yet. They are hiding in an abandoned science lab in the outskirts of Jump City." Batman said finishing the briefing.

"Ok team let's go." Kaldur said with authority.

**Abandoned Science Lab in the Outskirts of Jump City**

The team arrived not too long after they left the Cave. When they arrived they saw some streams of light coming from the lab.

"They are fighting someone." Superboy noted.

"Huh? How'd you know that?" Kid Flash asked.

"Remember I have super hearing, and the person they're fighting seems to be mocking them a lot." Superboy answered.

"Go with caution." Kaldur ordered.

The team, and Batman, all got out of the Bio-Ship. When Batman got to the ground he noticed something off with a specific part of the woods. He walked over and noticed something was camouflaged in the spot he was looking at.

"There's a motor cycle camouflaged over here." Batman informed the team as he put a tracer on the bike so he'd know where it would go. (A/N: Remember camouflage is different that invisible, and you know Batman has been trained greatly.)

"Whoa really?" Kid Flash said as he ran over to the where Batman was.

"This is so cool." Kid Flash said with a grin

"Let's go inside."Kaldur ordered.

Then the team got inside through one of the windows on the top of the facility. The facility was a huge white generic laboratory exterior, but on the inside were tons of cables linked to a big cannon looking machine and on a platform near it was various chemicals from tons of different labs all in protected cases.

The team also noticed that no one was near the machine itself. They were all armed and searching around the room for the metallic voice that was mocking them.

"'Looks like Red X is here."' Kid Flash said looking at all the X's around the room, and on some of the scientist bound to the floor.

'"Oh really what would give you that idea?"' Artemis replied sarcastically.

'"Let's stay focused on the mission we must get those chemicals."' Kaldur said to keep it on track.

"Can't we wait and observe what Red X can do though?"' Asked Kid Flash, which then Zatanna, Artemis, M'gann, and even Superboy nodded their heads at wanting to do it too.

'"I also think we should observe his capabilities."' Batman said in agreement.

That shocked the rest of the team after all who would of thought that Batman would support a slight stray from the mission plan.

'"Ok we can observe then I guess."'Kaldur said giving in.

**Red X POV**

'Heh they're watching me.' Red X thought to himself with a grin. 'I should make this a nice show then.'

With that Red X teleported above a scientist with a gun and un-camouflaged himself as he was dropping towards him.

"Boo." Red X said in his metallic voice.

He was chuckling a little at how scared the scientist was. In seconds Red X had knocked the gun out of the scientists hand and shot him with a restrictor X. Then he noticed a bunch of scientists beginning to aim at him.

"X marks the spot." Red X said as he pointed to the X on his chest. (A/N: Yes I did borrow that from Teen Titans episode 28, X.)

Just as he said that he saw all of their guns sights lock on it. He smirked and teleported again. This time he went behind them. Red X did a low spin kick that knocked over three scientists, which he then shot with his restrictor X's. He decided he'd deal with the other scientists without using his suits special capabilities.

"Ready for round 2?" Red X said as he pulled out some of his smoke pellets and threw them on the ground making them explode creating tons of red smoke.

He pulled out one of his red staffs and hit all the guns out of each other the few remaining scientists' hands. He then started to capture the scientists. Although he didn't notice this but one scientist still had a 1 shot gun hidden(it's a pistol but it only gets 1 shot I don't know if there really are ones like that but this is fanfic so :P Lol) and they shot at him. The bullet only grazed his arm, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. He knocked it out of his hand and captured all of the scientists right then and there.

**Team POV**

"'Wow he's really good."' Artemis and Kid Flash thought at the same time.

"'I agree Red X does seem pretty skillful, but I can't see anything through this smoke."' Kaldur said disappointed about the smoke.

"'I think it's cool though look at all the scientists he's taken down."' Zatanna said impressed.

"'The fights already over.'" Batman informed them.

"'Wait you could see that?"' The whole team said shocked, but not too shocked after all he was 'The Batman'.

When they all looked they saw the rest of the scientists all wrapped up tightly, but no Red X in sight they wondered.

"Hey guys where's Red X?" Kid Flash asked out loud this time.

"I don't know he was right down there a minute ago." Artemis said looking around.

**Red X POV**

He had just beaten and tied up all the villains. 'Hey I bet it'd be pretty fun to spook all of them.' Red X thought to himself with a huge grin, as he teleported into the shadows behind them.

He got a little closer. He was pretty sure that Batman already knew he was up here with them. He got a little closer now he was basically right behind all of them. He heard Kid Flash and Artemis ask where he was.

"Boo." Red X said from right behind them.

**Third Person POV**

"AAAHHH!" They heard Zatanna nearly shout. All the others on the team nearly jumped out of their skin, except Kid Flash who actually jumped and Superboy who almost hit him out of reflex. Batman was still like a stone statue though the only person who was shocked. Red X had been lucky though that his reflexes were fast or that would of hurt, a lot.

Red X was chuckling everyone there could tell that he thought it was funny.

"So did you enjoy the show?" Red X said with his metallic voice, but you could tell he had a grin.

"You knew we were watching?" The team all said in surprise.

"Yeah I saw you come in. The scientists didn't though." He said to reassure them they were covert. "So you guys want what they stole?" Red X questioned them.

"Hey you were shot!" Zatanna said being the first to notice a slight red stain growing from his arm.

The whole team looked to where she mention. "Are you alright?" Most of the team asked.

"I'm fine it isn't anything. So what does that device do?" Red X questioned as he noticed Batman had left to retrieve the goods.

"We don't exactly know." M'gann answered him. "You should really get that taken care of." She said with some slight guilt that he was hurt just because they only watched.

"I will take care of it in a bit." Red X replied. "So is this all that brings you guys here?" Red X questioned. "Also why is Batman traveling around with 6 teenagers? And where's Robin?" Red X asked, because he knew if he didn't it ask those questions it may seem a little suspicious.

"It's a long story." Artemis said to try and get him to drop it.

"Well then maybe some other time I can hear the story." Red X replied plainly.

"So are you going to take care of that now?" M'gann asked again still feeling a guilty pang on her.

"Sure, but one last question if it's ok." Red X asked.

"Sure." Kaldur said in acceptance.

"Who are all of you guys? I know you're Aqualad, that's Kid Flash, he's Batman but who are the rest?" Red X asked already knowing the answer.

"Um that's a secret!" Aqualad said sorry-ly.

"Ok I can accept that." Red X said as he walked out and went to his bike.

Red X got to his bike and pulled out some medical gauze and wrapped it around his arm. He looked over his bike and saw what he expected to. A Bat-Tracer on his bike.

'Some things never change.' Red X said to himself as he pulled it off.

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**A/N:** I'm stopping it there for now but next chapter will be a direct continuation of this one. I only stopped it here because I'm not sure what I want him to do with the tracer yet. I have 3 very different ideas I could work on, but I don't know which one I should do.

I have to admit starting this chapter was hard because I kept getting good ideas but I would only get them when I wouldn't be able to get to a computer for hours so I forgot several parts of different ideas, but I think it may have turned out good. I integrated a little of all of those ideas into this chapter though.

I really hope you enjoyed though.

Ok now some questions I have (if you don't want to you don't have to answer)

it ever specify where Zatanna lives before Misplaced (Which I'm not having the things from that episode in this fanfic.)?

you give me a fake civilian ID for Red X, because I'm getting into a creative slump on names (but only with names.) ?

do they get from the watch tower to Earth?

So um if you want to answer the questions can you please pm your answers to me?


	9. Please Vote

**Disclaimer: **I don't own this show or any other DC things. I also don't own the name that I asked for they belong to their respective owners.

**A/N:** I am not sure if I'll use the names I asked for though, but thank you for making the names. Although I'm not positive about having it show you guys when he's using it, but even if I don't have it show him using it directly it will still reference it. Also I'm so happy that you guys all like the story :D

I'm sorry about the delay, but I couldn't decide which of the 4 best possible paths for the story to take so you guys get to vote on which one you would like to see a full version written of the most.

Also, thank you everyone that answered, alerted, gave names, reviewed, or favorited the story.

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**Please Vote**

(This is the first one.)

Red X pulled off the Bat-Tracer and looked at it.

'Looks exactly the same as they were when I left. I think I can get into this just like the ones he had on all the stuff, and my original bike.' Red X thought to himself intently.

Red X cloaked himself and hacked into the Bat-Tracer successfully.

'Hah pretty easy so far.' Red X thought with a grin.

Red X set the tracer to keep it looking like it was in the same area as it was now, but also changed it so that he could reverse it and track Batman.

'Mission accomplished. Now Red X will have a reason for me to know who Batman is.' Red X thought to himself happily as he saw the team and Batman come out of the building and go into the Bio-ship.

'Might as well throw a tracer on that too just.' Red X thought as he threw an X tracer onto the Bio-ship.

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**Number Two**

Red X pulled off the Bat-Tracer and looked at it.

'Looks like he wanted to keep track of Red X.' Red X thought to himself.

Red X walked back into the building, and saw the team and Batman disabling the machine and carefully containing the chemical.

"Hey I think you forgot something Batman." Red X said as he jumped down to where Batman was.

"What do you mean?" M'gann asked innocently.

"I believe you left this on my bike." Red X said holding up Batman's Bat-Tracer.

"So that was your bike?" Kid Flash said curiously since he wanted to see it.

"Yes. Did you like what you partially saw?" Red X said with a little chuckle.

"Yes it was really cool." Kid Flash said with a grin.

"How fast can you get it going?" Artemis chimed in.

"As fast as I need to." Red X replied with a grin.

"Well here you go." Red X said handing Batman his tracer.

Batman nodded and went back to doing what he was doing.

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Well number 3 is basically the same as number two except Red X put a tracer on the Bat-Tracer or put the tracer on the belt secretly.

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**A/N: **I didn't type them out though because I've been busy sorry everyone. I know it's been 11 days I've had tons of school work to do and I've been focused on too many other things, and I didn't know which path to have it take so that's why I went and posted this (sorry about that.) The one with the most votes wins and I'll try to get the next chapter after this out ASAP!

Also, for the people who submitted the names and helped out thank you so much. You were all pretty creative with them. Lol, I just noticed that last chapter I forgot to put how in front of question 3.

(Another Note: ) Whoa almost at 50 reviews this is the most I've ever received thanks everyone : )


	10. Results

**Disclaimer:** I don't own any of the characters, the show, or anything else of DC.

**A/N:** Ok so I will try to do that mix like Shadetail43 voted. Wow though it seems number 1 was favorite though :D lol. It had 4 votes, number 2 had 1 vote, and either of them/mix had 3 votes.

Thank you to everyone who voted, reviewed, favorited, and alerted to me or the story; I'm happy that you all seem to like it so far and also WHOA! :D :D :D We are past 50 reviews now I think that is awesome!

|_| That is supposed to be a cake for you guys, lol.

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**Results**

Red X pulled off the Bat-Tracer and looked at it.

'Looks exactly the same as they were when I left. I think I can get into this just like the ones he had on all the stuff, and my original bike.' Red X thought to himself intently.

Red X cloaked himself and hacked into the Bat-Tracer successfully.

'Hah pretty easy so far.' Red X thought with a grin.

Red X set the tracer to keep it looking like it was in the same area as it was now, but also changed it so that he could reverse it and track Batman. Then he put it in the same place he picked it off of on his motor cycle.

'Mission accomplished. Now Red X will have a reason for me to know who Batman is.' Red X thought to himself happily as he saw the team and Batman come out of the building slowly.

'Might as well throw a tracer on that too just to be safe.' Red X thought as he threw an X tracer onto the Bio-ship inconspicuously.

"That was a mission well done, if I do say so myself?" Kid Flash said with a cocky grin on his face.

"What do you mean, you didn't do anything. None of us really did anything except help Batman disable the equipment." Artemis said sounding slightly unhappy about them not contributing to anything major.

"Yeah, but think about it. The mission could have been a wreck instead of a smooth sail like it was." Zatanna said cheerily as she tried to make her friend happier.

"Yeah I guess." Artemis replied simply.

"Ready to go?" Batman questioned, but it sounded more like an order then a question.

"Yes we are all ready to go." Aqualad said for the team, which signaled M'gann to have the Bio-Ship un-camouflage.

The team all heard a metallic whistling sound and looked around. Batman pinpointed where the sound was coming from the fastest and looked at a tree that held a shrouded figure in one of its branches. He had his arms folded behind his head and looked as if he was laying down in the tree.

"That's a nice looking ship." Red X said from the tree.

"Thanks; it's our Bio-Ship, and we use it as one of our primary forms of transportation." M'gann said cheerily.

"Looks good doesn't it?" Kid Flash said with a grin.

"Yeah looks nice, but I'm cool with my current vehicle." Red X said as he pressed something on his wrist that made his pitch black motor cycle appear in front of them, with the Bat-Tracer still on it.

"Whoa that motor cycle we partially saw earlier was yours?" Kid Flash said interested in the design. "Can I check it out?" Kid Flash said quickly after his other question.

"Yeah its mine, and no you can't right now." Red X said with a grin and a chuckle at Kid Flashes jaw dropped reaction to his answer.

"Why not you can look all over the Bio-Ship, if you want too?" Kid Flash said in negotiation.

"It is a sweet deal, but I will have to pass this time." Red X said as he noticed the suspicious glare that Batman had been giving him since he revealed himself to the group.

"What do you mean? Why can't we show you around and you let us inspect your bike." Kid Flash said hopeful.

"Or you could just let me look at it." Kid Flash said with a huge grin as fast as he could.

"Hey you're not going to look at that without me." Artemis said with an annoyed look at Kid Flash.

"Or me either." Zatanna through in there too with a smile.

"Guys he can't look at his motor cycle, and he can't look at our Bio-Ship." Aqualad said sternly. "We need to leave, and he has a city that he needs to protect." Aqualad added in.

"Aw! Why do you have to be such a kill joy?" Artemis said glumly.

"Wait I have one more question for him!" M'gann said quickly.

"Sure. What is it?" Red X asked intrigued.

"Why are you dressed so dark? You're a hero and aren't most heroes dressed in brighter colors than that?" M'gann asked genuinely confused.

Red X had actually released a metallic laugh at that.

"Why are you laughing?" M'gann said extremely confused at what was funny.

"You ask that question, but you are hanging around with Batman, one of the darkest colored heroes around, if not the darkest, and you guys are all dressed up in dark colors like a covert ops group. I do know what you mean though I don't look too much like a hero, but neither does Batman. I am a hero though so don't worry." Red X said as he recovered from the laughing fit.

Red X and the whole team could clearly see the glare Batman was giving Red X, but he did have to conclude that it was true.

"Well I think that we all should get going." Batman said in an order tone of voice.

"Uh... Yes we should go now!" Aqualad said seriously so that they could get out of seeing Batman's stone cold glare.

"Yeah we should." Kid Flash, Artemis, and Zatanna said together.

"Well hey if you ever want to take us up on that offer that Kid Flash gave, even though it wasn't his to offer, you could come by our base at-" M'gann started but stopped when she saw Batman's stop right there now glare.

"Um sorry, bye." M'gann said as her and Superboy ran into the ship along with the rest of the team.

**Red X POV**

'Well that went well for the most part.' Red X thought to himself as he cloaked himself and his motor cycle.

**Team POV**

"Why couldn't we tell him where our base is at?" M'gann questioned.

"It's because Batman doesn't trust him enough to let him come to the base, and even though he is another hero it is a good point. He is still a newly announced hero." Aqualad said calmly.

The rest of the ride to the Cave was mainly filled with chatter about the mission and other things, but other than that they were silent.

**At the Cave**

"How did the mission go?" Superman asked as soon as the team and Batman walked into the room.

"The team didn't do much." Aqualad said quickly.

"Why not?" Superman asked confused.

"We were watching Red X preform in battle." M'gann said happily.

"How was he?" Superman asked curious.

"He was good, but he is still an adolescent." Batman said knowingly.

"How do you know that?" They all said as they looked at him like he had three heads.

"How he fought, mimicked the villains, and held himself showed that much." Batman said as if it was obvious.

"So if he ever proved himself to the team could he join us?" Aqualad asked for the team, but he didn't get an answer as Batman and Superman both left the room.

"Well that was rude." Zatanna said plainly.

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**A/N:** So how was this chapter? I hope you all liked it, it didn't take too long for me to write it and I think it turned out good. A nicely sized chapter for this story I think :D.


	11. Fire

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with this show or any characters they all belong to their respective owners.**

**A/N: **So everyone thinks last chapter was worth the wait? Thanks for reviewing too :D.

I hope you like this chapter too :D. So not that long of an A/N today on to the story.

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**Fire**

X's View

Red X had drove away from where he was at and he had checked to make sure the tracers were still working. Red X's reversing on Batman's tracer was still working and he had seen X on his screen get back to the Mountain.

'One location down, one to go.' Red X thought to himself as he floored it to a place in the woods for him to hide his cloaked cycle.

There was a fire in progress and Red X was going to help get the civilians, which the fire department couldn't get, out of the building. The fire was not cause by a super villain though. This time it had been human carelessness which had caused the fire.

Red X teleported to the roof, and then inside the building. As soon as Red X had he noticed two little kids cowering in a corner crying.

"Don't worry kids it'll all be okay just come with me." Red X said in a nice, calm, and friendly tone.

The kids were a little hesitant at first, because after all it isn't every day that you see a super hero with a skull mask offer you a hand, but the kids both took it and Red X ran and jumped out the window shielding both children.

Red X very carefully shot out a big adhesive X to act as a trampoline.

"Are you both okay, and is anyone else inside?" Red X asked quickly as he was about to hand the children off to the fire fighters.

"Yeah we're both okay, but our mommies are still inside!" The kids said as they sniffled trying to fight back the tears.

"Don't worry I'll get them both out in time." Red X said as he started a sprint and teleported inside.

'Dang it!' Red X thought to himself 'I should have asked what floor they were on!'

Red X ran from room to room and teleported from floor to floor until he found them on the floor in the kitchen. One of them was passed out from inhaling too much smoke and the other was barely conscious.

"Come with me I'll take you to your children, they are safe." Red X said with his hand held out.

The lady took it and he held the other one under his arm and instructed her to get to a window. They both got to the window and he kicked it clean out.

"Be careful I am going to shoot out some X's and you need to jump onto each one of them to get down safely." Red X instructed her as he shot out various large adhesive X's.

The lady jumped and made it down safely, and then Red X carried the other woman down and got them both to safety.

"Are you alright?" The fire fighters asked as they ran to Red X and the women.

They went through the casual checkup that is given when a person was in a burning building and throughout it all Red X saw the two small little children were smiling and happy. It brought some joy to Dick to know that the children were safe, happy, and with their mothers.

When Red X was about to go off the little kids tugged on his arms.

"Thank you Mister X!" both the children said extremely happily.

"It was nothing. It's all part of the gig." Red X replied with a huge grin, not that they could see it.

"Thanks for the help Red X it was much obliged." Said one of the fire fighters.

Red X just turned gave a nod that basically said 'no problem' and teleported back to his bike.

Red X checked the tracer and the one on the Bio-Ship was still in the same place, but the one he reversed on Batman had moved to a different location, Gotham City.

'Looks like he left and may even be heading back to the cave.' Red X thought to himself.

'After he gets there I should disable the tracer so he can't re-trace it back to me.' Red X concluded to himself.

**Batman POV**

'That Red X must've been trained.' Batman was thinking.

Batman and Superman were both talking earlier about him and even Superman admitted he was intrigued about the person behind the mask of Red X. After all Jump City wasn't a dark moody place like Gotham, but Red X was a dark hero for such a bright city.

'What makes him tick?' Batman started to think when he noticed something he hadn't paid attention to all night. The tracer he set on Red X hasn't moved once since earlier tonight.

**Team POV**

"Hey look it's another report on the news about Red X in Jump City!" M'gann said as she looked at the TV screen.

"Another? Wow there's been tons of them today." Zatanna noted.

"I know right. He seems to be doing tons of rescues a day." Artemis added in.

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**A/N: **I know not much here in this chapter more of a filler, but next chapter I promise next chapter will be better and a real one. I was considering giving a spoiler about the name but nope :P just have to wait lol.

Well I hope you liked it. I had something I wanted to ask/say to you guys but its escaping my mind right now. Well see you guys later I'm going to write a better chapter next time!


	12. Happy Birthday

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything to do with this show it is all DC's property.

**A/N: **Like my very first profile avatar? Lol

Thanks everyone for the reviews I really do enjoy hearing your opinions.

I am extremely sorry about not updating this story, but I've been a little busy.

So are you guys ready to see the new chapter? DUNDUNANUNANUN! On to the chapter!

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**Happy Birthday**

Dick's POV (yes I'm going to use the name Dick right now :P)

Dick was just sitting down watching one of those oddly placed Christmas specials (A/N: Haven't you ever seen one of those? You know when they play it before December even starts.) Dick was watching "Frosty the Snowman." He was at the part where the children put the hat on their Snowman.

"Happy birthday!" The Snowman, Frosty, said in a cheery voice as he came to life.

That's when Dick remembered what today was.

"It's KF's birthday today." Dick said to himself.

Dick thought about what to do. Even though he separated from the team, and league, and no one knows that Red X was actually Robin, didn't mean that he didn't want to wish one of his best friends a happy birthday.

"Well maybe I can make it look like a coincidence." Dick thought to himself.

"Yeah, that'll work I think." Dick said to himself.

"I can just pop in to return Bat's tracer and since I completely dismantled it, after I got the info I wanted, he will just want to look over it and Red X will give the useless piece of tech to KF so it acts as a present." Dick thought with a grin.

Dick got dressed in his Red X suit and grabbed the wrecked tracer.

"I really did a number on this." Red X chuckled.

Then Red X jumped on to his motor cycle and floored it to his personal max setting. That added with him using the teleporting feature on his suit helped him get there in no time. Red X got to Happy Harbor and parked his motor cycle out in the outskirts of the wilderness of Happy Harbor. Then Red X teleported to the highest roof top in Happy Harbor. After that Red X grinned, un-camouflaged himself, and then he teleported inside of Mount Justice.

**Inside Mount Justice**

Wow Red X teleported inside right as Kid Flash blew out his candles.

"Huh? Red X what're you doing here?" Wally asked as soon as he saw the darkly cloaked figure appear out of nowhere.

The team all agreed and looked on at Red X with shock, after all it wasn't everyday a cloaked super hero discovered your hideout and came inside.

"Just passing through." Red X said plainly with a grin, even though they couldn't see it, "So you're Kid Flash's civilian ID I'm guessing?" Red X said still grinning.

That gave Flash a reason to glare slightly. No one knew anything about Red X, but now Red X knew what Wally looked like. If he wasn't so shady then it would be different, but Red X isn't and doesn't have any contact with the league or any members, not to mention the fact that some of the league still believe that he may just be a villain trying to earn the trust of the people by pretending to be a hero.

"Um yeah it is. So you want to share yours?" Wally said with a care free grin as he rubbed the back of his head, because he didn't mind Red X knowing because he believes that Red X is really a hero not a villain pretending.

"Maybe next some other Kid. So then I'm guessing it's your birthday then." Red X said with a grin.

"Yep." Kid Flash replied simply with an even bigger grin.

"Well happy birthday then Kid here's a present." Red X said as he pulled out Batman's disabled tracer and tossed it to Kid Flash.

Kid Flash caught the tracer and looked at it awestruck. It was the Bat Tracer that Batman had put on Red X's motor cycle earlier on.

"Whoa! SWEET!" Kid Flash said with a gigantic smile, because it wasn't every day that you get a present of one of Batman's equipment.

"How did you find that." Kaldurr said slightly suspicious, but impressed that Red X found the tracer.

"Pretty quickly actually. I was going to return it to the Bat myself but since it's useless now anyways it makes a better gift I think." Red X said with a grin giving him an answer that didn't answer his question.

Now Flash was even more suspicious, but he was definitely amazed by the skill this young hero showed. Flash decided that if it was allowed then he'd definitely try to get this kid into the league, or at least on to the team. It made sense too because Red X was probably just as stealthy as the Big Bad Bat himself.

"If you don't want Batman to jack that you might want to tell him that I've already deleted everything on that tracer, and it's completely disabled on the inside." Red X said with a mock salute as he teleported away.

"Whoa." Wally said definitely impressed at what Red X had told him.

"He's got guts." Flash said staring at where the man had just been.

**With X**

Red X got on his motor cycle and went to go to Gotham City so he could send a letter. Red X pulled out a letter and put it in a mail bin and then he teleported away.

**The Letter**

"Hey Mr. Wayne you've got a letter in for you." Bruce's secretary informed him as she handed it to him and left.

Bruce looked at the letter and noticed that it didn't have a sender, a return address, or anything else except a destination and who to give it to, himself.

Bruce opened the envelope and saw a couple note cards of paper fall out and a few pictures.

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**A/N:** Well sorry about it taking so long to get it out, but hey I updated and left you on an interesting note, literally lol.

I'll start next chapter with what the note says and what the pictures are ok? It might be another few weeks for the next chapter though because I've got state testing, EOC's, and all this other junk to do now unfortunately, but I shall update.

On another note, I'm thinking about starting another fanfic, but it's irrelevant and unrelated to this one. Also, I'm currently putting **Disappearance** on to an undetermined length hiatus.

So please review everyone :D!


	13. Author's Notice

**Author's Note**

First off, I'm sorry that this update is only an A/N, but I promise that I will update the story soon (well as soon as I can.)

I'm just busy with it being the last weeks of the school year, trying to study, and other stuff, but I promise that I will try hard to get you an update to the story within the next 4 to 5 weeks and if I don't then I will just post what the stuff he sent to Batman was.


	14. A Trip into Jump

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything to do with this story, other then the fact I'm writing it, all of the characters belong to DC.

**A/N:** Oh my gosh guys I'm so sorry that I haven't updated(except for that A/N which I'm sorry about, but I beat the deadline I set right?) Sorry to leave you all on a cliff hanger that was really evil of me and I apologize. So yeah sorry about the rambling too and all that other stuff, but hey I got my learners license and it's almost summer time so you'll get more updates quick. We all win :D

Also, special thanks to Shadowtail43 for helping me out on pre-reading this chapter for me! :D

Thank you all for reviewing/favoriting. Thanks a lot I hope you all enjoy the story, also in the next couple chapters I may reveal which name I'm going to use as an alias for Red X out in public.

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**A trip into Jump**

_**Where we last left off**_

"Hey Mr. Wayne you've got a letter in for you." Bruce's secretary informed him as she handed it to him and left.

Bruce looked at the letter and noticed that it didn't have a sender, a return address, or anything else except a destination and who to give it to, himself.

Bruce opened the envelope and saw a couple note cards of paper fall out and a few pictures.

The first thing Bruce looked at was an interesting picture. Bruce saw himself and Alfred inside his mansion trying out one of Dicks' video games. Bruce remembered doing that with Alfred to pass the time, figure out what was so appealing about them, and because they both missed their boy.

Bruce was annoyed, because he was positive that his security system should've caught anyone who was watching them. The next thing Bruce looked at was another picture it was in the Bat Cave with Bruce in his Batman suit with the mask down when Bruce was trying to solve a case.

That one got to Bruce; whoever it was that took those pictures had managed to get in under his radar, and had even gotten within 50 yards of him without him even knowing. That part made him suspicious of who it was and even who trained them. Bruce was certain about one thing though there was no way there was a person in there it had to be a piece of technology or something.

When he looked at the notes they seemed weird

_Hey Bruce how's the business going? I bet that your Wayne Tech company is going great with you at the lead. I know that you're a great leader and even a helper to society almost like you are Batman except you're just an unmasked hero out in the public. I would love to see you again sometime._

That note made Bruce inquire just what this person wanted and what the true meaning of the letter was.

The second note card though was just a really big red X with an emoticon that was the tongue sticking out one.

That answered Bruce's inquiry he knew just who sent it and why. Red X had sent it to him telling him that he knew who he truly was, which made Bruce even more irritated. He had to find something out about Red X but his leads end up dead and so hasn't his leads to find his protégé.

**The Watch Tower**

Batman had called a meeting for some of Justice League to talk about Red X and the notes he received. Batman had showed them to the Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Man Hunter, Black Canary, Aquaman, and Green Arrow. Batman had done it to see what everyone else thought of the notes personally and what they believed Red X truly was, but he also was going to go to Jump City later that night and pay their little friend a visit just like he technically asked for in the letter.

Flash had decided against telling Batman about his tracer being used as a gift for Wally, but did tell him that he believed that Red X is really skilled and pretty daring, but could be a really great addition to the League or to the Team.

When he had said that Black Canary simply stated, as a joke, that "it'd be a little odd to have two of Batman especially if one of them was on the younger team", but Superman had replied, with a grin, that "every team could use a Batman. "

Martian Man Hunter, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow were still a little undecided on whether he is truly a villain under a cover or a young hero.

Batman said he was going to Jump City and Superman stopped him to tell him that he would be coming to because he wanted to get to meet the hero too.

**The Cave**

The team was gathered around watching the TV but nothing in particular it had been a boring day. It made them regret even more that they didn't notice that their youngest member, Robin, had disappeared. That's when the zeta-tubes recognized Flash enter the cave.

"What's up Uncle Barry?" Kid Flash said as soon as his uncle came rushing into the room.

"Guys watch this Superman and Batman are going to Jump City to look for Red X!" Flash said quickly as he grabbed the remote changed the channel to the one that was synchronized with the camera that he gave Superman so the league could watch too, and at the same time Flash grabbed a bunch of snacks.

"Wait why do they want Red X?" Kaldur asked for the team.

"He sent some notes into Batman's Civilian ID's work place that basically told him that he knows who he is." Flash said as he and Kid Flash were devouring the snacks he had just brought over.

"Wait he figured out who Batman is?" Artemis said shocked after all Batman was THE BATMAN who wasn't an ordinary hero he was so secretive and paranoid that he covered his tracks and for someone to figure it out on their own was just amazing.

"Yeah I know pretty impressive and Batman still doesn't know who Red X is himself. Isn't that saying something." Flash said as the TV screen came to life to show Batman and Superman in the wilderness outside of Jump City.

**Batman and Superman**

"So how are you planning on getting his attention?" Superman asked curiously.

"We don't need to he's already here." Batman said plainly as he looked at two super villains running away from what appeared to be nothing. The next second the villains were covered in a giant red X and they dropped their stolen goods.

Within minutes the villains were hauled away in a giant police truck. Batman and Superman went down there discretely and surveyed the area.

"So you got what you wanted." Batman said out of nowhere.

"What do you mean?" Superman said genuinely confused.

"Heh you really are the worlds' great detective Batman." Came Red X's metallic voice from a dark corner.

"How'd you know he was there?" Superman said after Red X came out.

"Because he's Batman." Red X said with a grin that even though you couldn't see his face could tell was there.

"Who are you X and how'd you get images inside my cave?" Batman said with the famous bat-glare

"That's the billion dollar question Mister Multi-billionaire." Came Red X's calm reply. "Don't worry though I am a hero, not some kind of villain, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just give away my identity. There'd be a sooner chance of You telling Clark Kent your secret ID and having him publish it to all the world, but that golden reporter of steel wouldn't do something like that, would he?" Red X added with a grin.

"Wha-Ho-How did you discover…?" Superman started hesitantly but didn't finish.

**Team**

"Wow that kid just might know all of our secret ID's." Flash said amazed.

"What do you mean?" Miss Martian asked curiously.

"He just told them Superman's civilian identities name to them. Out of all the reporters would it really be that big of a coincidence for him to pick the one that is currently present with him." Flash answered still slightly bewildered.

**Red X, Batman, Superman**

"Heh now that's a secret." Red X said with a chuckle. "Also Batman just put down that tracer you're going to try to hide on my person; it's not going to work." He added in, because he knew exactly what Batman was going to do.

"So why did you send those letters to Batman, when you could've kept it secret from us that you knew?" Questioned Superman.

"It's simple I just wanted you guys to know that you can trust me even though I'm not in your Justice League." Red X said casually.

"Then why not share who you are?" Batman said with a mega-glare at Red X.

"Where's the fun in that?" Red X said with another chuckle.

Then a police car sped down the road to head to a bank where everyone inside was being held hostage.

"Well duty calls see you around." Red X said as he completely disappeared, teleporting away to get to the scene.

"We're going." Batman said plainly as he headed off to where the crime was occurring.

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**A/N: **Hey guys and gals sorry about taking so long to update. Well I have a few things to say, but they're probably something that I should've posted about earlier, lol.

First: Wow I can't believe what they did to the crew lol. I haven't watched past episode 1 of the new season because I've been doing other things.

Second: Only 8 school days left yeah :D

Third: I passed my state test :D

Fourth: Thanks all of you for staying tune to this story and reading and reviewing.

Which brings me to my fifth thing please review :D . I'll try to get the next chapter up as soon as possible.

Oh yeah just two more thing that I forgot who thinks I should start a story about Robin's voyage into Nightwing?

Also, what path should Red X take? Should he somehow get admitted into the Team or League or something else or should he stay solo and crime fighting in town and all over, but bump into League members and the Team ever so much?


	15. Who is that man?

Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with this story, other than the fact I'm writing it, all of the characters belong to DC.

**A/N:** I apologize for taking so long to update my summer's busier than I thought it'd be. I also apologize for this chapter not being as good as the others if it isn't. I recently caught a case of writer's block.

So like always thanks for the reviews, subscriptions, and favorites I hope you all enjoy the chapter and I will try to update quicker. On to the story!

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**Who is that man?**

**Red X POV**

Red X had just arrived at the scene of the incident, it was Cinderblock again and he was trying to bust into the city jail. Red X disappeared into the shadows above Cinderblock and threw down a couple little speakers to transmit his voice.

"So Cinderblock you want to go back into jail already? Don't worry I can help you with that." Came Red X's metallic monotone voice from all directions around Cinderblock.

Cinderblock replied by roaring and ramming another empty cell.

"I'm over here." Responded Red X's voice from a different corner of the room.

Then Cinderblock rushed towards that corner he heard the voice come from.

"Over here." The voice said again, practically mocking him.

Cinderblock rushed again and when he turned around Red X decided to end it right then and there. The cell in front of Cinderblock was empty or was empty until Red X swung down and sent a flying kick into the arch of Cinderblock's back knocking him into the cell. Then Red X shot Cinderblock with some adhesive X to keep him there. Next Red X shut the cell and alerted the officers that it was okay for them to come back and finish securing Cinderblock.

"Nice work Red X. We all really appreciate the help that we're getting from you. Everyone from the city Fire Department to the Mayor and citizens, and all of us police officers especially appreciate what you do for this city." Said an overly joyed police officer.

"It's no problem at all." Red X said plainly, but he was sort of distracted by a figure he saw outside the jail. The figure was dark but there wasn't a kryptonian with him and there wasn't a cape either it was clearly someone else other than Batman.

"Is something the matter?" The police officer asked as he looked at Red X staring outside. The officer's vision was good enough to see it but a figure was leaping away from the scene without anyone paying it any attention.

"Yes." Was all Red X said as he started to go out after the shadow.

Red X leapt up to the roof of a building and saw what he had expected to earlier. Superman and Batman both watching and inspecting Red X.

"Did you enjoy what you saw?" Red X said casually as he looked around slightly.

"Are you looking for something?" Superman asked as he saw Red X turning his head and looking off in the distance.

"No I just thought I saw something." Red X said as he started to go off slowly.

"Wait!" Superman said when Red X was about to leap off the roof.

"Yes?" Red X questioned still focusing on something else. Red X turned to look towards Superman and Batman as he realized it wasn't just himself that saw the person Batman was also more focused off in that direction.

"We have a couple more questions for you." Superman said as he looked at Red X and tested his X-ray vision on the mask, but of course it didn't work.

"Maybe sometime later." Red X said as he teleported away from the senior heroes.

**Red X somewhere else in Jump**

"That's not going to be the last time I see Batman in Jump City I don't think." Red X said as he laughed a little.

**At the Mountain**

"So that was eventful." The Flash announced as he and Kid Flash finished off the huge amount of food they kept getting.

"So what do you think they're going to do then?" Asked M'gann.

"About what?" The Flash asked.

"You know Red X they approached him in his city and he even revealed that he knows their identities." Superboy said completing M'gann's question.

"Who knows, but I doubt Batman's going to back off of Red X now. He'll probably try to monitor him for a while, but I have no clue really Bats think weirdly and differently than everyone else. You can't really figure out their next moves that easily. I do think he'll keep up the search on Robin though." Said Flash as he changed the channel to something random.

**Red X out of costume**

Dick Grayson had put away the costume and got dressed into his civilian clothes. He had made sure to check over the clothes for tracers. Batman had honestly not attempted that trick with the tracers this time. He wasn't positive that Batman would or wouldn't but now he knew that he didn't.

'I guess that now I'm going to be even more careful about Batman and be expecting more visits too." Dick thought to himself as he locked up and turned in early.

When Dick woke up in the morning he grabbed the false identification he made for himself, just in case someone questioned who he was. He even hacked the systems to make the ID work legitimately.

'Might as well get some groceries and relax for a bit.' Dick thought to himself as he left with his costume on under his clothes (just in case there was some trouble) but he made sure to wear an undershirt, a regular shirt, and a coat to go along with it. He had on his signature shades and put on his helmet and left off to go into the city.

'Bruce would definitely say I need a haircut by now.' Dick thought to himself with a grin. His hair had grown to a nice length and it still contained all that dye even down at the roots, it was some very good dye.

**/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/**

**A/N: **Well I'm going to end that there for now I guess. I'm unsure I may rewrite this chapter later. The chapter was going to be longer than this but then I was so tired I went to bed and then I forgot what was going to come next, sorry.

I was actually going to announce the name I was going to use, but like I said I forgot the part unfortunately. Now I do promise to update this quicker than last time.

Like always thanks for the reviews and I hope you review again I like hearing what you think :)

Also, the next chapter of this story is going to be that petition.


	16. Meeting the Mystery Man

**Disclaimer: **Nope still don't own the characters or anything they all still belong to DC.

**A/N:** Thanks everyone for reviewing, alerting, and marking this as favorite =).

Sorry for this chapter being as short as it is.

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**Meeting the Mystery Man**

Dick Grayson drove off into the city and first went into the city's main super-market, Jump Produce. He quickly gathered all that he needed to get, including more of the same dye he had in his hair. Once he paid for it he left and put them into the trunk of his motor cycle and went home to re-dye his hair.

After he finished his hair and it all settled in he looked at it in the mirror. He now looked like he was a golden blonde with raven black highlights.

'Well this isn't bad I don't look like Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne's ward, anymore.

**Dunanunanuna Batman POV**

Batman was currently back in his cave but he didn't intend to be in there long, because he once again got too irritated at the computer that he broke the darn thing again, and he wanted to get out before Alfred figured it out. Last time he had a lecture given to him with Alfred's glare, that can even match his bat-glare and maybe even be a little worse than it.

Batman was almost to his Zeta-tube when he heard what he didn't want to "Master Bruce, where are you going? "

"Just up to the Watch Tower to continue my search for Richard on the computer there." Bruce

"Why not use the Bat-computer? " Alfred questioned him, because he wasn't in the room yet.

"Well you know what they say a change of scenery can help you." Bruce said slyly as he was about to go through the zeta-tube.

"You broke the computer again didn't you?" Alfred stated more than asked.  
>"Maybe." Bruce said quickly as he went through the tube with his cowl and suit all on, to keep his identity hidden.<p>

He was in for it later.

**Team POV**

There really wasn't anything going on at the time for the team. Zatanna was reading a book; M'gann was trying to bake some cookies; Kaldurr and Artemis were sitting and playing a game of chess, but neither were really that interested in it, it was only something to pass the time; Wally was sitting there vibrating in a chair waiting for the cookies to finish; and Conner was just sitting on the couch in front of the television watching his favorite show, static.

"Hey I have an idea of what we can do guys." Wally shot out to the rest of his team.

"Huh what is it?" Zatanna said as she looked up from her book.

"Yeah Wally tell us." M'gann said as she pulled out the finished cookies.

"We should all go to Jump City!" Wally said as he jumped out of the chair he was sitting in.

"Why?" Artemis asked boredly.

"Well why not Artemis? It could be fun and isn't there a bike shop there you wanted to check out anyways?" Zatanna said with a smirk.

"Yeah it could be a vacation day!" M'gann cheered happily.

"Well fine I guess." Artemis said conceding.

"Then it is decided. We will go to Jump City." Kaldurr said in his normal voice.

"Okay." Conner said plainly as he got out of his chair.

"I'm just going to grab a little travel snack first." Wally said as he ran in a blur to the fresh cookies and grabbed a handful.

**Red X**

He had changed back into Red X and was currently running across roofing's to catch up to the being he saw. He had seen that shadow again; he knew it was most likely the same shadow as the other night, because it appeared to be around the same size and height and seemed to carry itself the same as the one the other night.

Red X jumped across the roof of one building and saw the shadow start to go faster. Red X then started to use his teleport feature to catch up. Once Red X caught up he finally saw who it was a man with a black and orange mask with one eye hole and wearing black clothes with various pieces of metal armor(covering the shoulders, around the collar area, on the thighs and lower legs, and on parts of his arm, he also had a metallic looking belt around his waist.)

"Who are you, and why are you hiding in the shadows around the city?" Red X asked the unknown figure.

"I'm watching." The armored man answered indifferently.

"Watching what?" Red X asked in the metallic voice.

"Here's a test, X" The figure said with amusement in his voice as he did a sweeper kick to knock Red X off his feet but he missed ,barely, with Red X dodging it.

"What are you trying to do?" Red X questioned the mystery man's actions.

"I told you giving a test." The mystery man responded.

"I'm not in school." Red X said as he dodged a punch from the man.

"Well class is now in session." The man replied as he did another sweeper kick and once Red X dodged by jumping over it which then the man sent a punch that hit Red X right in the shoulder.

Red X then countered by sending an x-shuriken right at the mystery man which he responded by throwing a projectile with an S on it.

"What does the S stand for" Red X asked as his X shuriken and the S projectile collided creating a miniature explosion.

"Slade." Slade replied plainly finally answering X's question. Slade leapt back away from Red X.

"So we're finally getting somewhere." Red X stated.

"You did well for your first test." Slade said amusedly as he jumped off the roof and disappeared.

"Looks like I'm going to have something to do for a while." Red X said as he disappeared.

**Team**

The team had just flown into the city on the bio-ship and they were going to have some fun each one of them wanted to explore something in that city and they were all planning on enjoying the visit.

**/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\**

**A/N:** So I think I may reveal the name I'm going to go with next chapter and I thank everyone again who reviewed, favorite, or alerted to this story. Sorry if I have Slade a little OOC, but it's been awhile since I've watched TT I'm going to have to watch some more episodes soon.

So after next cahpter who wants to read a chapter about Batman?

So please review at stay tuned =)


	17. Petition

Greetings to the fine folk that moderate our site.

Myself, along with many, have been writing and posting on your fine site for years now, some of the better examples of up and coming writers out there are now suddenly finding some of the stories we've come to love at risk of being removed without the chance to even rectify our errors.

For some, that means the permanent loss of a story. While I don't have anything that I believe violates your terms of use, there are those out there that are never able to recover a story in its original form, this is something I find to be almost worthy of a legal action, as while we cannot claim ownership of a character, the stories are OURS and simply destroying them is something that is inexcusable.

It's quite easy to simply add an MA rating, additional filters or even a simple requirement for a free membership to read the stories presented here, and would cut down on hateful anonymous reviews and posts at the same time, so I have to question as to why such a thing, in all this time, simply wasn't added.

If you're worried about falsification of a registration then have an appropriate disclaimer and then there can be no dispute, you took your steps and the PARENTS didn't monitor their children, if that is even your concern. If it is more of a personal view or desire then please at least let people know and give them a chance to remove a story that you and yours find offensive, most people on the site are actually rather cordial when it comes to such requests.

While I cannot say for sure if this letter will even reach those that may be willing to listen, of if it's more akin to a wide spectrum purge in preparation for something bigger, please understand that you are going to be looseing a LARGE number of your writers, and thus your income from a lack of readers if there is not some level of action taken to help with this situation.

For those that may agree with this, please feel free to sign on and send this to the support server, maybe we can get some movement on this.

Psudocode_Samurai

Rocketman1728

dracohalo117

VFSNAKE

Agato the Venom Host

Jay Frost

SamCrow

Blood Brandy

Dusk666

Hisea Ori

The Dark Graven

BlackRevenant

Lord Orion Salazar Black

Sakusha Saelbu

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Harufu

Exiled crow

Slifer1988

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blood enraged

arashiXnoXkami

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Blueexorist

Nero Angelo Sparda

Sharkteeth

DAPC

Kyuubi16

bunji the wolf

EternalKnight219

Shi Kami The Murderous Prodigy

DeathNoteMaker

Nostalgic Remedy

Paco the Taco Maker

Ireadtomuch

Marauder Heir

ScifiSOS

ncalkins

Psudocode_Samurai

Rocketman1728

dracohalo117

VFSNAKE

Agato the Venom Host

Jay Frost

SamCrow

Blood Brandy

Dusk666

Hisea Ori

The Dark Graven

BlackRevenant

Lord Orion Salazar Black

Sakusha Saelbu

Horocrux

socras01

Kumo no Makoto

Biskoff

Korraganitar the NightShadow

NightInk

Lazruth

ragnrock kyuubi

SpiritWriterXXX

Ace6151

FleeingReality

Harufu

Exiled crow

Slifer1988

Dee Laynter

Angeldoctor

Final Black Getsuga

ZamielRaizunto

Fenris187

blood enraged

arashiXnoXkami

Masane Amaha's King

Blueexorist

Nero Angelo Sparda

Uzunaru999

The Next Muse

Yumiko21

Asmileadaykeepmeway

Youwillnotstopme

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917brat

Mai Ascot

ForbbidenForest

Blood of the Dawn

FudoTwin17

Jclark775

**A/N: **Hey guys sorry for not updating in awhile I haven't forgotten about the story I've just been a little busy and I'll try to start writing the next chapter. Sorry for the wait.


	18. Fun in the City

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything to do with this story unfortunately, it is all DC's property (probably for the best it since it's taken me awhile to update this story.)

**A/N:** Hey guys it's been awhile thank you for reviewing the story and marking it as favorite/alerting. I seriously apologize about it taking so long to update I hope you accept my apology. Also thanks for so many reviews I mean I'm amazed that you all like the story I didn't know how good it'd be at the beginning and that also reminds me that this chapter may be a little off since I lost where I was going….again….. They may also be a little OOC.

To Kevin – I am unsure of what you mean can you elaborate? Blood of the Dawn is a very good author though.

This chapter com link will be "' and telepathic link will be ""

Well I've kept you waiting long enough let's go off to the story! AWAY!(Whooshing noise)

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_**Fun in the City**_

**Team POV**

The team had decided where they were going to meet up at and the time now all they had to do was decide who wanted to go where or with whom.

"I want to go with Artemis." Zatanna had said quickly since the team had already figured who most of them were going to go with. The only reason why they had to say who they would be with was so that there would be two people in each group that the team could contact.

"Yeah I'm going with Zatanna." Artemis said with a grin.

"Hey sugar why don't me and you be a pair?" Wally said quickly but was shot down by Connor in an instant.

"Me and M'gann are going to be a pair." Connor said bluntly.

"Yeah sorry Wally me and Connor already planned to be a group." M'gann said apologizing to Wally.

"Then that leaves you and me." Kaldurr said to Wally.

"Yeah I guess so." Wally said slightly deflating his mood for a second, but he snapped right back when he smelled something delicious.

"Okay so we all meet back here at the arranged time. Have fun everyone, but remember if trouble comes just send a signal through the com link." Kaldurr said as each of the pairs split off into different directions.

**Zatanna and Artemis**

"So where do you want to go?" Asked Zatanna already knowing where it would be.

"You know I want to go to that bike shop, but where do you want to go?" Artemis asked.

"I don't know why not just walk around after we go to the shop?" Zatanna replied

"Okay. Do you know where you want to go?" Artemis asked.

"No not yet we could just walk around or something after we go to the shop." Zatanna answered.

**Connor and M'gann**

"So where do you want go?" Connor asked M'gann.

"I would like to go to a book store for some cook books."M'gann answered with a grin.

"Okay let's find one then." Connor replied.

**Kaldurr and Wally**

"So where would you like to go?" Kaldurr asked as they were walking through the city.

"Why don't we explore?" Wally asked.

"Nice recommendation I agree that would be fun."Kaldurr said with a grin.

**Zatanna and Artemis**

Zatanna and Artemis had been searching for a little while, but hadn't been able to find it.

"Dang it's pretty hard to find this place." Artemis said frustrated.

"Yeah, but why don't we just ask someone if they know?" Zatanna suggested.

"Sure." Artemis replied.

They walked for a little bit longer and they saw a man dressed up in just a casual red jacket with some blue jeans on. The man also had light brown hair and was wearing some sun glasses.

"Hi mister can we ask you something?" Zatanna said as they walked up to him.

"Um sure." The man said slightly hesitant.

"Do you know where a bike shop in this area would be?" Artemis said bluntly.

"There was one at one point not too many blocks away from here. I'm not sure if it's still there, but if it is then you would have to go that way." The man said pointing. "Then take a left at the street and then a right and follow that until you see a sign or the shop."

"Okay thank you." Zatanna said with a smile.

_**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~TIME SKIP~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**_

"Hey look there is the sign for the shop." Zatanna said as she pointed to the bike shop sign that was ahead of them. The sign said that the shop was a little more north. They kept walking and the gravel road turned into a finely packed dirt road.

"Why wouldn't it be like a regular building in the city?" Artemis asked.

"Maybe they like privacy." Zatanna offered as an answer. "Plus it is still pretty close to the city."

"Yeah, but it is a bit of a walk." Artemis said.

**Red X POV**

Red X had just returned to his shop and changed back into his civilian clothes, for now. He was now himself again and was planning on gathering any information he could on this new phenomenon 'Slade.'

He had to admit he was really curious about what Slade wanted. He was sitting on a chair at his desk gathering his information when his senses told him something was going to happen. He put away all of his blueprints, which were left on the table, and anything that remained that could give any hint of who he really was, Red X/ Richard Grayson. Then he checked a little monitor that showed him that there were two people coming to or close to the shop.

"That was a close call I don't want anyone finding out." Dick said as he also went to cover anything that could reveal either of his identities.

When he came back and looked again that's when he noticed.

"It's Zatanna and Artemis." Dick said with a slight grin, but also slightly nervous.

**Zatanna and Artemis**

Zatanna and Artemis had been walking for a short little while then the shop finally came into picture.

"Hey there it is." Zatanna said pointing to the shop.

"Yeah we're almost there." Artemis said happily.

**Richard**

Dick had everything hidden and now they were an eye shot away from the shop so he changed the channel that the monitor was on the local news channel.

A couple minutes after he switched the channel that it was looking at Zatanna and Artemis walked through into the store.

"Hey you're that guy we raced!" Artemis said as soon as she noticed.

"Yep. How've you been?" Richard asked with a small grin.

"We've been good." Zatanna replied.

"So I'm going to assume you want to check what I have, right?" Dick asked.

"Of course!" Artemis said with a smirk.

"Okay well they're back here." Dick said walking them into the back room.

The girls followed and on the news there was mention of cinder block escaping prison.

"So you work here? Where's your boss?" Artemis asked.

"I actually own it and I'm my own boss." Dick answered grinning at Artemis's stunned face.

"That's awesome." Zatanna said.

Artemis was going to ask him how he could afford it, but he cut her off and said "So which one would you like to look at?" as they were now in the back room with a lot of models on display.

"Hmm." Artemis said as she thought. Then she saw a pure dark green motor cycle with parts of lighter green and was the same color as her Artemis hero suit and all it was missing was a light green arrow on the sides.

"I think I like that one." Artemis said as she pointed to the green motor cycle.

"Nice choice." Dick said as he walked up and went to the box of keys to get the one that belongs to the green motor cycle.

"Hey what's your name?" Zatanna said out of nowhere.

"Okay I guess I'll tell you now." Dick said hoping his false persona would work. "My name is Noah. Noah Schultz (**A/N: **Thank you Shadowtail43 and Fiji-Fruit9000 I combined your offered names.)" Dick said with a genuine smile to them.

"That's a nice name." Zatanna said to him as Artemis was inspecting the bike.

In the front room on the TV screen there was a story about the recently escaped Cinderblock.

**Kaldurr and Wally**

They had been just wondering around and filling Wally's constantly hungry stomach every little bit. They were walking through the city center and they had seen a thing on the TV that had happen to pop up out of nowhere.

"The criminal known as Cinderblock who was put into police custody by Red X has broken out of the prison and his whereabouts are currently unknown. Caution of civilians and police is recommended. Cinderblock is considered dangerous." Said a female news anchor on the local Jump City news channel.

"We should be on the lookout for this Cinderblock." Kaldurr said while thinking to himself.

"Yeah maybe we even get to team up with Red X to beat this guy down!" Wally said enthusiastically but in a somewhat hushed tone so that no one there would hear what he said other than Kaldurr.

"So are we going to call the rest of the team or should we just wait and search for him on our own?" Wally asked curious.

"For now we shall go it on our own and if we find him we shall call the team in." Kaldurr said believing that there wasn't much point calling the team away from what they were doing if the criminal's whereabouts were not known yet.

"So should we get going them?" Wally asked ready to go nuts.

"Yes I believe we should." Kaldurr answered as they both began walking down to the places that they believe a criminal may go.

**Unknown Location**

Cinderblock was standing having just been given orders by the mysterious Slade. He was to test that new hero Red X to see exactly how much this hero could handle. He was told to fight Red X and he definitely had the motivation to deal with him for stopping his other mission.

**Connor and M'gann**

M'gann and Connor had been inside a book store for the majority of the time they had been away from the others. M'gann had a huge amount of books in Connor's hands while she just kept flipping through pages of cook books like an insane person. She was also looking at other types of books, but Connor couldn't really tell what ones she was searching through since she just kept grabbing a bunch at a time.

"So do you know what you would like to do now?" M'gann said with a cheerful voice as she was looking through the books.

"I don't know." Connor said plainly as he went to take a seat by a nearby chair.

The library was an interesting one. It had many varied color chairs with metal shelves containing hundreds of multiple books. The room had different colored walls on different areas blue by the calming books and videos, red by the more action themed books, yellow by the cook books, and they even had a small café in the cook book area. Plus their motto was interesting being "Just jump in." Not too far from them there were two children talking about the new mysterious hero, Red X.

Apparently the kids had been by the fire that had happened the other day and they were talking about how cool Red X looked doing his heroics to help the firemen.

"Did you see when he shot those X's to help the lady get down?" one of the kids asked the other.

"Yeah and remember when –" the other one started going on as Connor stopped paying attention, because both events had been on the news channel his friends were watching the other day.

"Seems like Red X is a big thing here doesn't it?" M'gann happily as she had finished grabbing books and was now deciding which ones she would get out of the dozens she put into Connors arms.

"Yeah he's pretty popular with them." Connor said nudging his head towards the children who he had overheard talking.

"That's so nice!" M'gann said as she finally decided the two books that she would buy.

"Why don't we buy these two and go over to the café?" M'gann asked Connor.

Connor nodded his approval and they went to purchase some lunch and the books.

**Wally and Kaldurr**

Wally and Kaldurr had been searching for Cinderblock and then out of nowhere he just comes and starts bashing stuff.

"Found him." Wally said as he saw Cinderblock burst through a wall.

Cinderblock didn't notice their presence as he was simply trying to lure Red X into a fight.

"Time to call the team." Kaldurr said calmly.

Kaldurr pressed his com link so that he could talk to the full team "'Team come in"' Kaldurr spoke "'We've found the escaped Cinderblock he is on a rampage by a local pizza restaurant."'

"'We'll be right there."' Came M'ganns voice over the com link.

"'We'll be there too."' Came the whispered reply from Zatanna.

"'Is something wrong Zatanna?"' Wally asked, because of the quietness of her response.

"'No it's just that me and Artemis are in a quiet bike shop and yeah we'll get there as soon as we can."' Zatanna said as quiet as before.

**Artemis and Zatanna**

"Noah can we take this for a test drive?" Artemis asked so that they'd have quicker transportation to where the team is and an excuse to leave the shop.

"Sure I guess it couldn't hurt, but be careful out there, there's this guy called Cinderblock causing a real mess out there." 'Noah' said to them as he gave them the key to the motor cycle Artemis was checking out earlier.

"Will do." Zatanna said with a smile as Noah opened the garage for them to leave.

Then they zipped off out the open garage and onto the dirt road back into the city. They pulled into the trees and Zatanna worked her magic (literally.)

"Egnahc sehtolc otni ruo smrofinu!" Zatanna chanted and was then followed by it taking effect and changing their civilian outfits into their hero clothes.

"'Okay we're on our way now."' Zatanna said as they zoomed off into town on the green motor cycle.

**Noah Schultz**

Noah/Dick waited until he knew for sure that there was no longer a chance of them discovering his identity and got changed into his Red X suit. He put his mask on finalizing his change into Red X and he went down into his HQ and jumped onto his motor cycle.

"That was a close one I thought I would've had to make an excuse myself." Red X said to himself as he floored his motor cycle out the secret exit which closed itself after he went through.

Red X was traveling fast and he could see the city and it wasn't going to be long until he reached Cinderblock.

**Team **

The team was all fighting Cinderblock but it was hard to do that without causing much collateral damage. Cinderblock was like a living cause of collateral damage. Artemis shot a net arrow towards Cinderblock to try and snare him but it didn't work!

"He's too big for the net!" Artemis said as she reloaded her bow.

Superboy was fighting fist to fist with Cinderblock and Superboy was winning! That's when Superboy saw both of those kids from the library. They were both right there if he kept fighting like this they'd be crushed. Superboy sent an upper cut punch at Cinderblock.

""The children are going to be crushed."" Superboy heard coming from M'gann.

Superboy's eyes bolted to the children when he heard that.

""Oh no!"" Superboy said regret in his mental voice.

That's when the team saw it. In an instant the children were there and the next Red X was there holding one under each arm and leaping into the air to dodge Cinderblocks falling body.

"OH MY GOD ITS RED X!"One of the children shouted.

Red X placed the children down on the side walk "You're not hurt right?" Red X asked eyes focused on Cinderblock.

"We're both fine." Both the children said to Red X.

"Good then get out of here as fast as you can!" Red X said with urgency in his voice.

"But-" Both of them started trying to decline what he said.

"No buts this is dangerous!" Red X said as he teleported to where all of the other heroes were standing as Cinderblock was getting up.

"Hey welcome to the party." Kid Flash said smiling big.

"So what brings you guys to Jump City?" Red X said as he dodged a pillar thrown by Cinderblock.

"We were just checking out things over here." Superboy said.

"Well what do you think about city so far?"Red X said as he teleported behind Cinderblock.

"It's a pretty nice city." Zatanna said as Aqualad hit Cinderblock hard into Superboy's punch which knocked him into three of Artemis's explosive arrows and three explosive X's.

The hits disoriented Cinderblock and M'gann used her telekinesis to keep him from getting up long enough for Red X to shoot a couple adhesive X's and for Artemis to shoot several net arrows and Zatanna to chant a spell that would keep him out cold long enough for the police to return him to a new stronger sell for him to be held in.

"Hey Red want to come over to the cave sometime?" Kid Flash asked in a blink of an eye.

"Maybe some time." Red X answered in that unusual monotone metallic voice that comes out of his mouth.

"We cooperated well together." Aqualad said as he looked from one to another.

"You guys are a good team." Red X said as he noticed that familiar shadow hanging around on one of the undamaged roves. The shadow disappeared before he could do anything.

"Is something wrong?" M'gann asked seeing Red X focus on something in the distance.

"No, but I do have to go. I hope you guys have fun if you choose to stay in the city." Red X said suddenly as he disappeared from the sight of the team.

"What was that about?" Artemis questioned.

"I don't know, but at least he isn't rude." Zatanna said.

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**A/N: **Thanks again for giving me the name for the secret ID both of you it's really helpful and also another I'm sorry for making you wait so long but at least this was(I believe) my longest chapter yet. Well I hope you guys have enjoyed it and will review this chapter for me.


	19. A Party to Attend

**Disclaimer:** I believe by now we all know I don't own anything.

**A/N:** Sorry for taking so long to write just been busy. So who's ready to read about a big bat?

Also my friend Celestials is making a fanfic out there it's pretty good just saying lol, while I'm at it read each other's fics they're great I love reading your works ;).

Also THANKS FOR THE REVIEWS we're over 100 thanks so much :D

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**A PARTY**

**Gotham**

Bruce was once again alone in his study looking through some of the past momentous of him and Richard. There wasn't a day that Bruce hadn't at least though about his little bird.

'Where are you?' Bruce thought to himself.

Bruce hated the quietness of the manor now and when he went out as Bruce Wayne he always got questioned about Richard and why he wasn't there. Along with being questioned as Bruce Wayne he received retorts and commentary from his common criminals. It never ended well for anyone who mentioned the bird's absence.

Bruce had another one of those events that he had to go out to, but he honestly didn't feel like it there was no younger people there so they always tend to focus on sucking up to Bruce.

Bruce had been neglecting to shave or even get much sleep until he found some clues on Robin's whereabouts and what the truth behind the new hero Red X was. The only reason he had gotten any sleep is Alfred forcing him to go to sleep, and there wasn't any fighting Alfred. It was a battle even the Batman couldn't win.

Bruce's sadness was only hidden by him burying himself inside his cases.

"Master Bruce, would you like some more coffee?" Alfred said walking into the room with a tray.

"No, but thank you Alfred." Bruce said as he flipped through a couple more pages.

"It couldn't be helped sir." Alfred said. "He'll come back once he calms down, and it gets through his head."

"It could've been helped." Bruce said sullenly. "And now I can't even find my own child."

"Well sir to be fair he was trained by the best. Do cheer up sir, he'll turn up eventually and tell you all about his adventures. He will come back, trust me." Alfred said reassuringly.

It had actually worked too. Bruce did feel a little better.

"Don't forget about the event though." Alfred said reminding him of that party for all the rich people in Gotham and even some from other cities.

"I won't, don't worry." Bruce said with a little smirk as he went to get his Batman suit to do a little justice before leaving.

"Do be careful, Master Bruce." Alfred said as he left the room.

**In Jump city**

NoahSchultz was sitting at a computer crunching some numbers. He knew he still had a lot of money but it wasn't enough to rely on just the money he started with when he was constantly spending different amounts of it on his Red X persona, along with earning no real income.

He would be good for a long time but that didn't mean that he shouldn't look ahead and try to make sure he'll always have money for necessities and for Red X. He was thinking he could actually sell the motorcycles and it was a good idea, but there wasn't ever anyone who honestly came out there to get one. He couldn't blame them though because it was slightly out of the way it was sort of the point of it being where it was. The only people he'd notice actually come to his shop were Zatanna and Artemis that one time.

He had another idea where he could keep this place still out there and buy another place in town and transport all of the motorcycles there but then he would be losing more money quicker and there still wasn't much of a chance that, that many people would really want a motorcycle. He could also repair them, but he'd still be in the same situation. He then just started to focus on how to make it all work when he saw a breaking news flash on the television.

It was a minor robbery but Noah felt he should intervene anyways. He suited up and was on his way within minutes. There were police officers hiding behind corners with their guns close to them and pointed towards the doors and window. It was a hostage negotiation or it appeared to be at least.

"What's the situation?" Red X asked calmly.

"There are mad-men inside the building armed to the teeth." The chief said grimly.

Red X noticed what the place was. It was an average size children's school that was currently in session.

"Do you think you can stop them?" The chief asked hopeful.

"Yes I think I can. Do you have any other information on the criminals though?" Red X questioned.

"8 to 10 men armed with pistols, grenades, and are requesting $10,000,000 for the ensured safety of everyone inside." The chief answered.

"Okay." Was all Red X said as he went into camouflage mode and teleported to the top of the two story school building.

Red X first tried to tap into the system to see if they had video cameras inside. He was in luck the common criminals hadn't thought to destroy cameras. He looked over the footage in each room in the main room there was 2 men one constantly looking out the window and the other watching the children, they were panicked and their teachers were trying to calm them. In the other rooms one guy was on the second floor, right under him, was just sitting in a chair, four others were in the cafeteria watching all the students that were there and the others seemed to be taking more of the students into the cafeteria.

'I'll start with attacking the ones getting more students.' Red X noted in his head.

Once one of the armed men made their way towards a different side of the school on his own Red X sprang into action by teleporting behind them. He shot the man's gun with one of his X's.

"WH-!" The man started but was stopped by an adhesive X to cover his mouth.

The man started tugging on it fruitlessly and Red X gave him the quiet symbol and knocked him out with a chop to a pressure point.

'One down.' Red X thought as he went to pick the others off one at a time.

He repeated the same actions against the other two children gathers and it worked both times.

He knew he was going to have to take out the ones holding the children captive soon but knew it would be better to take out the one upstairs first.

He got back up there with ease and caught the man off guard by throwing a light electric X against his back. It wouldn't leave any marks and shocked him unconscious so that he couldn't make a noise.

Now he was going to get the men up front there didn't seem to be any communication between any of the criminals though. He felt it was odd and that it couldn't be that easy.

With only two rounds of X's he had subdued the two up front and the children were jovial and ran right outside after he knocked them unconscious.

He ran back to the cafeteria in camou-mode. The first thing he did was hit the guns out of their hands with X's and went to hit them with a simple uppercut and a sweeper kick. They both connected but one of the men got back up and rushed him. Red X could've shot him with an X but he wanted to keep skilled in his hand to hand combat. The man sent an untrained punch at X's face which X countered by using it to flip the man into a wall and in the man's daze disarm him from anything he could use.

It was about at that time when he heard some police break down the door and were going to rush in. That's when he heard one of the criminals mutter "Slade said it would work, Slade said we could get the money and get off Scott free. "

'This was Slade's doing.' Red X thought clenching his hands into slight fists. He teleported back onto the roof and saw something he somewhat expected to.

Slade was standing on the roof adjacent and started to leap from roof to roof. Red X wouldn't lose him today he was determined on that. He leapt after Slade until they got to a construction site and saw Slade start to head towards the center of the construction. Then he stopped.

"Hello X." Slade said plainly as he put his arms behind his back.

"So you were behind that hostage situation." Red X stated more than asked.

"Yes another test, which I say you have done quite well in passing." Slade said with almost a cackle in his voice.

"What is your game?" Red X asked giving a glare he based on the bat-glare.

"Here's the next test, X." Slade started ignoring him. "There's a collection of wealthy people gathering in Gotham, even some from Jump city." He started.

"What about it?" Red X glared preparing to lunge at him.

"Some very familiar faces will be there. I think it would be best for you to go and see yourself." Slade stated in a way that you could tell he had a grin under that mask.

"And why would you tell me?" Red X said jumping to get only a few feet in front of Slade.

Slade ignored his question and asked one of his own "So what will you do?".

"Beat you." Red X said shooting a smoke bomb at the red bar they were standing on and went to send a fist right at his mask.

His fist was caught and Slade threw him off the platform. Red X responded by shooting his grappling hook to the platform above the one Slade was on. He shot himself up there and sent a sweeper kick at Slade which Slade used as an opportunity to flip over Red X and grab him up by his leg.

"You're not on my level boy." Slade said squeezing X's leg and chucking him into a red platform.

'Ouch that's going to bruise.' Red X thought as he threw projectiles at Slade who countered by dodging.

Red X teleported above Slade and shot the metal platform he was on with an electric X. It shocked Slade and so X used it and a chance to hit Slade in the gut. Red X grabbed Slade's covered shoulders and slammed his knee into Slade's gut.

Slade's body went back in reaction but he then Slade grabbed Red X and punched him right across the face.

"How could you possibly benefit from this?" Red X questioned and gave an upper cut to Slade's mask. He saw the mask go up and then it broke displaying a screen.

"Good work young X but you still have a lot to learn." The real Slade said and the screen changed the display a ticking down clock.

'5' '4' '3'

'Crap!' Red X thought as he chucked the robot into the sky and shot it with many adhesive X's.

'2' '1' KABOOM

The bomb exploded and the shock in turn sent Red X right off of the platform hurtling downward.

He shot another platform with the grappling hook and stopped his rapid decent.

"That was close." Red X said to himself after stopping.

'Now I have to get into that party. I guess it could work if I go as Noah, dress with the Red X clothes underneath, and solve the money possibilities at the party. I should inform Batman too' Red X thought.

_**MAGICAL TIMESKIP WHOOSH**_

Up, up, and away

Noah had dressed up fancy for the party by putting on a suit and getting prepared with gel in his hair. He put his Red X mask in his pocket with his gloves and was getting ready to ride on his sleekest looking motorcycle. He grabbed a thin sheet of gum like pad that was to alter his voice a little. He knew what he was going to do was risky but Bruce had never seen him like this maybe he wouldn't notice he was his bird.

"This'll work." Noah said to himself and he put on a safety helmet and his sun glasses.

He didn't want to risk his ID getting known so he figured he would contact Batman after he got to the city. The drive wasn't too long but he did succeed in messing up his hair. It was all now gelled down flat and straight to his head.

"Aw." Noah said as he started to try to fix his hair with his fingers.

While he was working on his hair his mind went a mile a minute try to think of what to do first. When he arrived to the grounds where the party would be he saw Bruce's limo pull up and Bruce leave to go up to the party entrance.

He parked it quickly into a zone and went to a little fast paced walk towards the entrance.

'Got to catch up.' He thought as he increased his pace. There were two lines, one of people who were getting in and one of people who wanted to get in. He was going to walk into the line of real rich people, who were just being let walk through. It would be difficult for a normal person to slide into the line but he made it into it the line with ease by sliding under the wire and against a wall he was only seen by 1 person who didn't squeal on him.

"So why are you slipping in here." The older gentleman asked quietly as they slowly progressed in the line.

"I need to get in so that I could talk to someone." Noah said. The line progressed decently and they weren't far from entering the building.

"Oh really?" The man asked. "Who would that be?"

"Just a guy I need to ask something." Noah said he only answered since he didn't want to be thrown out of line he was only four people from the front.

"Oh I see for an autograph right?" The man said with a smirk.

In the light Noah could see what the man was wearing now. He had on a fedora and wore a plain black suit with a matching black bowtie and had a fancy gold cane, he was also wearing a monocle with two gold front teeth.

"Yeah sort of like that." Noah said now standing in front of the line about to be let in.

The bouncer was right there he was wearing a plain black undershirt and black pants.

"Are you sure you're in the right line?" The man said looking accusingly at him.

"Yeah I'm supposed to be here." Noah said believably.

The man stared still not fully believing.

"He's with me." The gentleman said in his defense.

"Okay you can go through." The bouncer said conceding.

When Noah and the gentleman walked into the room Noah turn towards the man.

"Thanks for not ratting me out to the bouncer and for not getting me thrown out of line." Noah said appreciation in his voice and a smile present on his face.

"No problem young man; now go have fun, stay out of trouble, and get that autograph." The gentleman said giving him a wink.

"Thank a bunch mister." Noah said and the man filled in the blank.

"Mister Wordsworth, James Wordsworth is my name." Wordsworth said with a smile and then asked "What is your name if I might be allowed to ask."

"My name is Noah Schultz." Noah answered.

"Alright now go have fun and if I can help you out do wait to ask, because it'd be my pleasure to assist you." Wordsworth said as he patted Noah on his head and then walked off.

"He was nice." Noah said to himself as he then walked and scanned the room for Bruce. The room was a gigantic room and he could see huge groups of people standing all around. He noticed that this was a two story place. The walls were 100% white and were set up with some columns in the room. Tables were abundant and each had golden silk table clothes on them. The lights made the room glow bright.

He decided he would go to the second floor to look for Bruce. He walked up to the stairs which for some reason were grey and they had a handrail right next to them.

After he climbed up he saw that this floor looked bigger than the last. He could see even more people up there and the rooms layout was relatively the same. The main difference was the floor had an outdoor area and a balcony.

**Bruce Wayne POV**

He was on the balcony at the party leaning against a wall sitting, staring into the night sky. It was very starry and he had to admit very pretty sky. He was one of the only people on the balcony others were just in small huddles talking and laughing loudly. Bruce knew he wasn't being social but he preferred the other people not bothering him than them crowding around him. He looked back into the building through the glass sliding door and saw something that did interest him. He saw a young boy who had hair that appeared to be dirty blonde with some areas darker and some areas lighter. He suspected the boy dyed his hair one of the two colors but he wasn't positive on which was the real color. He was dressed pretty fancy though and had on some sun glasses. It didn't make much sense to him though.

'It's night, and he's indoors why does he have sunglasses on?' Bruce asked himself.

Bruce got off the wall and walked to go inside. The kid was moving a little and appeared to be looking for someone. Bruce started to get closer and the boy walked towards a corner of the room that was nearly completely empty. He was determined to talk to the boy and he had already noticed that his getting up and starting to move had drawn some attention to himself and some people looked like they were going to crowd him.

Bruce didn't know what it was exactly that compelled him to go after the kid who was still searching like mad. Then he saw the kid go to the doors for the big open balcony. Bruce speed walked after and he saw the kid walk out there and scan that area too. Bruce caught up and got out onto the balcony too. The kid hadn't noticed him that was when Bruce saw that everyone had left the balcony. It was the perfect opportunity to make conversation with the boy.

Bruce put his hand on the boy's shoulder and said "Hello are you lost?".

The boy jumped and his sunglasses flung off his face. The boy held a shocked look on his face and then replied "No I'm just looking around." Then he went to pick on his glasses but Bruce grabbed them first and handed them to him.

"Well if you need any help I'll try to assist you in any way I can." Bruce said.

"Thanks." The kid said in reply to both the offer and the glasses being handed back to him.

"It's a little dark outside for sunglasses?" Bruce asked to make conversation.

"Yeah I guess. I wore them on the way here and it was pretty bright out." The kid said removing the sunglasses and putting them on this color. That was when Bruce saw the kid had deep kind sapphire blue eyes.

"So what's your name if you don't mind me asking?" Bruce asked with a friendly smile.

"My names Noah, Noah Schultz and you're Bruce Wayne." Noah said with a little grin.

"Nice to meet you Noah." Bruce said putting out a greeting hand to Noah. He couldn't tell what it was but something about Noah seemed very familiar.

"Likewise." Noah said accepting the handshake.

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**A/N: **I'm sorry if the chapter wasn't that good and about taking so long to write. School was and still is pretty hectic. I have long paper to do and I honestly don't know where to begin on it. I would like to say thanks for reading, reviewing and marking as favorite though. I was like WHOA! When I saw how many people have read this story. I may start up another completely unrelated story sometime soon forgot what the idea behind it was. Maybe do some one-shots I'm not sure. I hope everyone has a good day and yes I really am leaving you hanging. That last half was Bruce's POV so that should explain some things. I'll try to update as soon as I can but it's not going to be this or next week I don't think. One more thing for people reading Celestials fanfict he has even less time than me now so that's why he hasn't updated.

Like always please review and a privilege to the first reviewer I'll let you decide when my next update deadline will be (has to be after Dec 12th) thank you and see you later.


	20. Continuation

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own anything

**A/N:** Sorry for taking my time in posting and like always thanks for reading, reviewing, subscribing, and marking as favorite. It means a lot thank you. Also, I am sorry about the spelling errors in that last chapter. I also would like to thank the giver of the deadline for being considerate. I apologize for it being short.

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"So Noah" Bruce began "who are you here with? " He asked as he considered the kid couldn't be much older than 16.

"I'm actually here alone. I was going to try to work something out." Noah said thinking about his real reason for coming and the fake one he was coming up with.

Bruce's curiosity was rising, but he didn't understand why the kid was alone.

"What kind of something?" Bruce asked.

"It was sort of like a business proposition that I was trying" Noah answered covering a few possibilities.

"Well why-"Bruce started but was cut off.

"My turn to ask the question." Noah said sticking his tongue out at Bruce and smirking.

"Okay proceed then." Bruce said returning the smirk, but still generally confused.

"Why did you follow me out here?" Noah asked raising an eyebrow.

"Because I know a lot of people at these events, but you looked young and unfamiliar so I thought that I would introduce myself to you." Bruce answered slyly.

'That was a clever cover.' Noah thought to himself.

"Okay well that was quite kind of you." Noah replied.

"So what kind of business proposition were you trying and why are you the one representing the business?" Bruce asked trying to get down to the core reason the kid was here.

"That's two questions." Noah said as he looked out, off the balcony, to try and see if he could find any of his criminals but he could only see Gotham citizens.

'Why did I even trust him he probably sent me here to attack my city.' Noah thought to himself and furrowed his brow.

"Oh sorry I guess can you answer the first?" Bruce asked noting the look on the kids face he appeared to be down or kicking himself mentally about something.

"Is something wrong?" Bruce asked just as soon as he finished his last sentence.

Noah nearly jumped and his reaction on his face changed completely. "Oh sorry, no it's nothing I am fine and as to your other question I was trying to see if any company would like to be, in a sense, linked to mine and work together." Noah answered his tone almost neutral at the beginning and then turned into a cheerful tone towards the end.

"Would you like to be that company Mr. Wayne of Wayne Tech.?" Noah asked giving a smirk and returning to a cheery voice.

'I can't believe I did that but if he says yes I'll be able to progress more than if I didn't ask. I'll just have to be more careful if he does choose to.' Noah thought to himself.

"I may be interested how about I answer when we are done talking? What kind of company do you work for?" Bruce asked.

"I guess that'll be alright, I'm in a motor cycle company but I'm currently beginning other vehicles like cars too once the new shipment is in." Noah answered and saw a different reaction from Bruce.

Bruce noticed he referred to himself as the company.

"Would that interest Wayne Tech.?" Noah asked unsure what answer he actually wanted since both had equal pros and cons.

'What am I doing?' Noah thought to himself, mentally face palming over the fact he was continuing it.

"It may, but Wayne Tech doesn't have vehicle section so it would be the first steps into new territory for us. So who is the boss of your company?" Bruce asked inquiring.

"That would be me." Noah answered hesitantly.

Bruce was frozen for a second he had to admit it surprised him to hear that.

"How did you become the boss?" Bruce asked knowing it wasn't his turn.

Noah realized his turn was skipped but ignored it.

"Since I made the company I'm the CEO of it." Noah answered honestly.

"What about your parents? Why isn't your dad or mother the boss?" Bruce said without thinking. As soon as he said it he already figured he knew why but it was too late to unsay what he said.

"My parents both died when I was younger." Noah said his voice going slightly down-cast. He had put his glasses back on because even though it had happened years ago and he had moved on and even captured their killers he still teared up at the thought of his parents deaths. (**A/N:** I wrote this in there because we all know our bird gone X cares deeply for his parents.)

Bruce froze.

"I'm so sorry. For your loss and for bringing it up." Bruce said empathetically.

"It's okay you did the thing most sensible adults would and asked why a teenager would be at an event like this alone." Noah said "So can we move on please?".

'Crap how am I going to tell him about the villains that are supposedly going to appear?' Noah thought to himself.

"Okay then," Bruce said respecting his wishes. "What part of Gotham is your business located?" Bruce asked.

"It's not in Gotham, it's in the outskirts of Jump City but Gotham was the only place that I knew had events like this and I thought this would be my best bet for receiving help." Noah said.

"It makes sense, but there is a decent distance between Gotham and Jump city." Bruce replied. "It explains the sun glasses too."

Bruce looked at the clock it was getting very close to mid night, he and this kid had been talking for a while he realized.

"The answer to your question that you asked earlier" Bruce started "I think Wayne Tech and your business could benefit greatly from this partnership."

"Thanks very much Mr. Wayne I greatly appreciate it and look forward to working together with you." Noah said.

'Crap I just basically gave Bruce Wayne, the Big Bad Batman, clearance to my city by just saying he had business with an associate.' Noah mentally face-palmed 'and now I'm once again, but less no than before, relying on Bruce.'

"Call me Bruce since we're now partners." Bruce said smiling and holding out his hand for a hand shake.

"Okay, Bruce." Noah said shaking Bruce's hand.

"Well it's getting pretty late I should probably leave to go back to Jump." Noah said realizing that he could just go Red X after he leaves and guard the establishment himself.

"I don't think that you should be out on the road at this time." Bruce said "You should stay some place tonight and go back to your city in the morning."

"Do you know any hotels or anything that I could stay at?" Noah asked.

"I know some hotels, but you aren't old enough to stay at them." Bruce said with a chuckle. (**A/N: I used this to make a reference to how Bruce Wayne's (in some versions not sure about YJ's version) cover is a play boy)**

"Okay then I guess I'll just check in to a more average hotel." Noah said ignoring the comment.

"You can spend the night at my house if you want to." Bruce said since it was a quiet night and he didn't think he'd have to be Batman tonight.

"No I don't want to be a burden. I do have to go though." Noah said trying to get out of there.

"It wouldn't be a problem." Bruce said.

"I need to get back to my shop though since I don't remember if I locked up." Noah used as an excuse to get away.

"Well okay then, but here's my number call when you get there and if you want we can continue our partnership plans." Bruce said as he produced a pen and wrote his number on a piece of paper that had practically appeared out of nowhere.

With that Noah accepted the paper and left after thanking Bruce. He ran down to the parking garage and then got on his ride.

'That could've ended very badly.' Noah thought to himself as he drove a fair distance away from everything and changed at light speed to his costume making sure no one was around.

Once he transformed into Red X he hid his motorcycle and put one of his tracers on it.

"Don't want to lose this." He said teleporting back to the event building and staying in the shadows instead of going camouflaged.

**X**

'I was duped I think.' Red X thought as he watched absolutely nothing occur inside or outside of the complex the event was happening in. He sat there watching until the event was almost over and he saw everyone almost ready to leave.

He noticed that it appeared that Noah was the only one Bruce talked to at the event besides a couple people occasionally walking up asking some questions.

'Slade lied to me and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.' Red X thought.

That was when he saw it, Cinderblock had busted through the wall and next to him were two of Joker's thugs, Jinx and Harley Quinn.

'Oh no.' Red X thought to himself Jinx and Cinderblock were bad enough but mixed with Harley Quinn and the Joker there was no way this was going to end easily.

'But where's Joker?' Red X thought as he scanned the room for the mad clown.

All the lights went out.

"Ladies and gentlemen" The evil clown's voice rang out through all the speakers "I think it's time this party really got started." He said with a maniacal laugh.

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**A/N: Sorry about it being mainly talk, but I'll make up for it in the next chapter (I hope). I thank anyone who reviews, subscribes, or favorites the story. I am happy you like it. Next deadline for first reviewer of this chapter has to have the minimum of it being at earliest the 25****th**** . I made this deadline by minutes :P peace : )**


	21. A Clown, an X, and a Bat

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own anything to do with this, but I like DC. If I did I'd have Red X at least be part of more than just the Teen Titans universe.

**A/N:** Sorry about being late on the update. As always thanks everyone for reviewing, reading, following, and marking this story as favorite. Now I'll try not to hold you up so off you go.

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**X**

'Be patient and wait for a good time to make your move.' Red X thought to himself.

He was scanning the room and saw the two thugs walked to the entrance, to block it, and he saw that as usual Harley walked right next to the Joker, while Jinx and Cinderblock were collecting valuables from everyone in there. Of course, though, since Cinderblock can't talk he was just the backup for when someone tried to be difficult.

"Come on ladies and gents, it's a PARTY so enjoy yourselves. Have a laugh." Joker shouted into the microphone with an evil smirk as he threw a bomb with Joker Gas at a frowning rich person. The man broke out laughing and the Joker too started laughing maniacally.

He saw Bruce stepping back and away slowly, managing to not be seen, but Red X knew that Bruce wouldn't be much help until he was able to get suited up, and for that to happen he would need to get out of there.

"Come on everyone, enjoy yourselves and empty your wallets for me." Joker said with his usual tone.

"Now where is out batsy? Hmm?" Joker said looking towards the ceiling, expecting it to be busted in any second.

"I don't know, I don't see him, Puddin." Harley said going into one of those goofy watchmen positions with her hand above her eyes while on one foot.

'Time to make an opening.' Red X thought to himself as he decided how he would go about taking them out.

Red X shot down some smoke pellets that filled the room in a dark red smoke as he knocked both of the pathetic thugs out in one shot and stuck them to the wall with another.

The smoke was dissipating and Red X knew that Bruce would've taken that opportunity to get out and suit up.

Once the smoke was gone Red X was seen there in the middle of the room in a fighting stance.

"What're you doin' here?" he heard Jinx say as she readied herself for the fight by emitting her pink curses around her hands.

"I thought it was an open invitation party." Red X replied in his metallic voice, but everyone could tell with that banter that he had a smirk plastered on his face under that mask.

Every person in that building stampeded out the open Red X provided by taking out the goons and then the room was relatively clear except for a few people who were too scared to run. There was also the person who was laughing like crazy remaining there too, but other than that it was just Red X and the four bad guys that were around him.

Out of nowhere Harley charged at him with a giant hammer. She missed but caused Red X to jump back to dodge. He was about to return the attack but saw a pink light coming quickly towards him and dodged again. This time though he performed an aerial maneuver to get out of the way. He did a flip and spun around a column and then used that momentum to hit Cinderblock. He did another flip off Cinderblock to hit Harley but when he was in the air mid-strike he saw another flash of pink and went to dodge just to get hit by Harley's hammer.

It hit him far across the room and into one of the columns that was in the room.

'OUCH!' Red X thought to himself. The hit nailed him right in the ribs and if they weren't hurt before they were now.

He stood up and got back into another stance.

"What's wrong X can't handle the heat? Then get out of Gotham." The Joker said giving an evil smile.

Red X saw more flashes of pink coming rapidly at him and countered them with his X's that he shot out of his hands. He saw Harley charge forward to hit him again and Cinderblock was also running at him like a deranged bull from the other direction. He teleported four feet away from both of them at the last second as Cinderblock sent his fist forward and Harley smashed her hammer down.

The two hit each other. Harley flung across the room with her hammer broken, she collided with another column and was unconscious in the rubble, but Cinderblock wasn't hindered much except for he seemed a little dazed for a second. Red X shot an adhesive X at him just to have him move out of the way and rush towards him again. Red X jumped out of the way and used Cinderblock's back as a springboard to get away from him. Cinderblock hit another column, there weren't very many standing and Red X believed that once they all fell the building would probably collapse and that wouldn't be good. It was at that point that he heard the glass on the second floor break and in burst the Batman.

Batman threw two Batarangs at Joker who then started to run to avoid them.

"Oh Batsy that's so cold, leaving the little red boy out to fight them on his own? Tsk tsk. " Joker taunted.

Batman heard the taunt and ignored it as he continued his assault, sending punches and throwing batarangs.

Red X was trying to hold his own against both Jinx and Cinderblock while also trying to watch Batman's back. He saw Harley starting to get up and that wouldn't be good so he shot a giant adhesive X at her to keep her down. The moment he took to do that though Cinderblock slammed him.

Red X used that momentum to roll and bounce back up with hitting Jinx with both of his feet. He flipped off of her and teleported mid-jump to right above Cinderblock. He shot another adhesive X on Cinderblock, but this time her only shot his face. Cinderblock then moved both of his hands up trying to get it off, but he was also slamming around like a wild animal. Red X shot both of his arms with adhesive X's hoping that it would hold.

He wondered if an Electric X would be enough to knock out Cinderblock. He prepared both of his palms to create separate electric X's to shock him. It was then that Jinx shot another bad luck energy blast at Red X. The blast hit him in the back of the hands, but affected the full hand. It messed with the electricity that was going on in his suit and it electrocuted himself, he let out a groan from the feeling coursing through his body. The effect didn't stop there though the X's on his hand, front and back, started to heat up and he felt burning. He had to stop his attempt at an attack, and shut down his suit before anything went haywire.

'Aw, ouch, dang my hands feel like they're on fire. I have to do a suit maintenance now too.' Red X thought to himself as he had to ignore the pain and fight with only the gadgets in his belt pockets.

"It was a shocking experience, wasn't it?" Jinx said giving her own grin.

Cinderblock was still rampaging, but he wasn't able to use his hands and couldn't see where he was going.

Red X gave a kick to his solar plexus and he was struggling to get up.

Batman had dealt with Joker for the most part and went to give an assist to Red X. He saw a beam of purplish pink light and then a flash of electricity and then Red X was pocking something on his belt.

'What's going on?' Batman wondered and then threw a batarang at Jinx.

"You should've helped him out sooner Batsy. Now look you let the poor boy get electrocuted." Joker laughed.

Batman ignored the crazy clown and ran to help out Red X.

Jinx saw Batman coming and went to run, but she was stuck. If she ran one way she'd have to face THE Batman, and that's just a nuts choice to make, and if she went the other way she'd have to face Red X.

Jinx went to run the way towards Red X thinking she could get away easier that way, but right when she went to run she was tripped by Batman's net and constrained by a restrictor X from Red X's pocket.

The problem continued after that though for Cinderblock finally managed to get free of the X's.

Batman looked at Red X who looked right back at him.

"I get his left, you get his right?" Red X asked and got a silent nod in return.

They both got into a stance and Cinderblock ran at them like a bull to a matador. Batman dodged to his right and sweeper kicked him while Red X dodged to his left and uppercut the falling body.

Red X then flipped and slid behind Cinderblock, who was starting to stand up again. Red X was on all fours behind him like a little kid would do to a big bully. Batman kicked Cinderblock down of Red X and Cinderblock's head hit the ground first and under his own weight was enough to knock him out.

"Nice show, nice show indeed." Joker commented clapping. He had gotten free of his restraints and held a grey remote in his hand. The remote had only one solid red button on it.

"Put the remote down!" Batman said knowing the remote couldn't be for anything good.

"Okay since you asked so nicely." Joker said with a sarcastic tone and a smirk as he pressed the button, dropped the remote, grabbed Harley and ran out of the building to a getaway car.

The remaining columns blew up and the entire building started to fall. The two quickly glanced at each other as Red X grabbed Jinx and the two attempted to drag the large Cinderblock out of harm's way.

Chunks of the ceiling were coming down quickly. The two were running as fast as they could. They couldn't go backwards or slow down, because the debris was covering everything behind them. They both saw an opening and ran faster. They threw the unconscious Cinderblock out the doorway, his bodies arms were enough to knock the two thugs off the wall and send them flying out the doorway with him, and ran even faster. They all made it out okay. Police had already gathered to arrest the criminals. That's when Red X saw the look Batman gave him and the hand signal he gave him. Batman wanted to talk to him on the roof of another nearby building.

**~~MAGICAL SHORT TIMESKIP~~ **

Red X was now on the roof with Batman. He was nervous about what Batman wanted to say to him, but he thought he knew a little of what it was that he was going to say to him, after all he did use to be Robin and he knew how territorial Batman was.

"Why were you in Gotham?" Batman said first and quickly.

"I just love the food here." Red X said sarcastically. "I heard some criminals from my city were coming here to this party to cause trouble. I didn't expect them to work together with your clown though." He answered honestly.

"How did you know they were going to be here and why didn't you inform me about it?" Batman asked roughly.

"I received a tip from the guy I believe is the true culprit behind this crime, and I couldn't get in contact with you. I know your secret ID, but that kind of call would firstly, expose my ID to you, possibly, and it would seem suspicious if someone was wiretapping you." Red X answered.

"Other than that I didn't know how to do it. I'm not in your Justice League or one of you partners, so I don't have a communication system to you." Red X continued.

Batman was thinking. He knew that was true.

"Why would a criminal tell you that he was planning this?" Batman asked suspicious.

"He's a weird, but very skilled criminal. Is an interrogation really what I get for letting you have an opportunity to get out of there and then get into costume and get back?" Red X replied.

He just received a look from Batman and he figured he was dismissed, but he could've left whenever he wanted to.

Batman was about to leave and Red X thought he should do something.

"Wait! Batman before you go I have a question." Red X said quickly.

Batman gave her a look and told him to proceed.

"There's this villain in Jump city, but he covers his tracks well and I can't figure out who he is." Red X started. "He calls himself 'Slade' and wears orange and black with metal pieces. His mask covers his entire face except for an eye. His mask is both those colors one side is orange the other is black."

"And?" Batman asked wanting to just get back to his cave to continue his own search.

'Am I really going to do this?' Red X asked himself. 'Am I really going to rely on Bruce to find out who Slade is?' 'No I'm not going to.' He decided right then.

"Uh, nothing, nothing at all I was just wondering if you've had a run in with this villain before yourself?" Red X said covering himself. He knew Batman hadn't ran into this villain before.

"No, I haven't." Batman said, but he had to admit that this Slade person did bring up a question in his mind.

"I'll look into it if you want." Batman offered, but it was more of an empty gesture he really wanted to look for his lost bird.

"No it's okay I'm working on a database for him and the other Jump villains, places they attacked, who they are, fighting style, that kind of stuff. That was all." Red X said.

Batman was tempted to ask Red X about whether he would want to help him into an investigation, but he brushed off the thought because first off that'd be a little embarrassing and second he wanted to search on his own.

"Are you okay?" Came randomly out of Batman's mouth.

"Huh? Yeah I'm fine why?" Red X replied curious.

"You were electrocuted was all so I was wondering if you were okay." Batman replied as he nodded and left.

After Red X and Batman separated, Red X went into a stall and put Noah's clothes back over the Red X suit. He then put the sun glasses back on and put back on the regular shoes. Then he drove quickly to his home to check out the damage that occurred to him during the fight.

Once he got home, all that was left was the part that he didn't want to see, his gloves. He took them off and saw his hands. He was completely shocked at what he saw. On both of his hand, front and back, he had the shape, width and length, of the X's that were on his gloves burned on his hands. It wasn't a normal burn though; he couldn't place what was different. Then he noticed the shade was a little off of a normal burn and then it him that there was a chance that some of the xenothium was still in the between phase of converting to electricity when he was shocked. He now knew he should take this to a doctor a doctor who wouldn't spread the word and who wouldn't care who he was under the mask, along with not checking his DNA.

**ELSEWHERE**

"So he's your new pet project, I assume?" Joker's voice was heard on a video screen.

"Yes, and quite a project he is." Slade's voice replied as he hung up on the clown.

"He's done well. He shows quite some promise." Slade said to himself while playing back the video on Red X fighting.

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**A/N:** To be honest I don't think this turned out as well as I wanted it to. I'm sorry about being late, hope you enjoyed the chapter and thanks again. I know it's a little off though and I'm sorry about that too. Also in a little while I'll be posting the True Robin story on my account since my friend wants me to. Have fun and I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.


	22. The Boy Under The Mask

**Disclaimer:** I do not nor will I ever own anything to do with this series.

**A/N:** Whoa has it seriously been 2 months since I updated? Hey though it's the one year anniversary of this fanfiction woohoo?! So I'm sorry about not updating in forever, no excuses. So I think my friends changed his mind and he's going to post his fanfiction on his own account. Like always thank you for those of you who read, review, follow, and mark this story as favorite. I enjoy the feedback a lot. **Special thanks **to Red Shade 43 for helping me decide on something.

To Femrobin Fan, yes he is scared and the rest shal be revealed today!(yay? Lol)

To Guest if he still wants me to then I honestly don't know, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I'm more than a little behind on some of my thoughts for the stories. Celestials is also a little behind though along with me (We're friends in real life and hang out together.) If Celestials still wants me to though, I will work on it sometime.

To Do I Read Too Much, yeah I was attempting to make it awkward. Glad to see I succeeded : ).

To the other Guest, Thank you for the compliment.

Now on to the chapter! Up, up and AWAY! Whoosh

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**The Boy Behind the Mask**

Noah

Noah had woken up from the little sleep he decided to take after he returned home. Before he had went to be he had wrapped his hands in medical gauze and other various tissue. After he woke up he clutched his side. He felt an intense pain in his torso and all through his hands; he still felt a faint burning on them. He got out of bed groggily and walked towards the sink. Once at the sink he turned it on, grabbed a little washcloth that was by the sink and began to wet it. Noah wiped the cloth along his face and felt a nice cooling sensation.

He began to undo the wrappings along his hands one at a time, starting with his right hand. He pulled them off relatively quickly. When he looked down he saw that instead of the normal look of a burn the day after his burn was glowing faintly crimson red. Noah began to run the chilly water of the sink over his right hand, to the rest of his hand it felt cold but over the X burns it felt kind of nice.

Noah started to scrub the X on the back of his right hand but nothing changed about it at all. He did the same to his other hand with the same result, the eerie crimson glow stayed.

"I should probably go to a doctor today to figure out why these burns are like this. It's probably because of the xenothium." Noah thought to himself. "I'll go after I eat breakfast."

For breakfast he grabbed a simple cherry flavored poptart out of the cupboard area. Then from the fridge he just grabbed a lemonade flavored water. He munched on one of the poptarts as he grabbed his costume and started to get dressed. He started with swapping his blue jeans with his black costume pants. Next he pulled off his plain black tee-shirt and pulled on his black long sleeve costume shirt. He felt his side scream at the actions. He put his hand on the wall to steady himself while he used his left hand to hold his side.

He pulled up his shirt a little but didn't see anything major on the outside, all that he saw was a big bruise from the hammer and Cinderblocks punch. He pulled his shirt back down and looked at himself in the mirror. He took a second to analyze himself. First he stared at his face. He rubbed a hand over it but didn't see much off. Then he looked at his hair.

"Whoa, " He said out loud nearly gapping at himself "was my dye job always so bright?" . His hairs tone had changed just a little but it made him look just a little bit more different. Other than that he couldn't see many more differences to his body, other than of course his hands.

He put on the domino mask and then continued to put on his Red X mask. Next came his belt, he quickly slung it around his waist and latched it. Then he double checked to make sure that it was indeed turned off and fully stocked with supplies.

"I can't risk using this again until I perform checkup and maintenance on the suit." He thought to himself.

The last thing left was his shoes and gloves. He quickly slid his feet into his shoes and prepared them in seconds. The last thing to do was put his gloves on.

"It'd probably be best to wrap them against before I put the gloves on." He thought.

**~~~~~~TIME SKIP~~~~~~**

**In Gotham**

"So it's decided, I'm going to go to Dr. Leslie." Red X thought to himself.

He had ridden his motorcycle to the city and he had some pain on the way there, but thankfully his motorcycle has autopilot. When he arrived to the city he was quick to get to the clinic and hid his motorcycle outback, camouflaged.

He pulled out his X-grappling hook and slung it to the roof of the building. He hit a button and he started to go up, but the ride hurt his side as part of his body rose higher than the other. Once he got to the window level he pulled out one of his X's and the tips bent so it was circular; he put it on the window and it spun, cutting a hole in the window. He stuck his arm through the window and unlocked it, then he lifted the window up and got inside.

"Welcome to the clinic Red X." He heard.

"Thank you, I came through the window like you recommended." Red X replied.

"So what is the problem? Why did you need to book an appointment with me?" Dr. Leslie asked "And can you close the blinds, just so no one see?".

Red X closed the blinds and the only light in the room was the ceiling light.

"Well first off, I have to show you something" Red X said as he took off his mask "it's me, Dick. Don't tell Bruce please."

Dr. Leslie looked shocked for a moment then continued on.

"So you're the boy that's behind that mask. Why don't you want me to tell him? He's been worried sick about you being gone." Dr. Leslie asked.

"It's a long story." Red X replied.

"Well I'll respect your privacy then. What do you need?" She asked.

"I need to know a couple things and can you patch me up too please?" Red X asked.

"Sure." Dr. Leslie replied as she got ready.

Red X took off his shirt first showing her the extent of his torso's outer damage.

"You look like you were hit pretty hard." Dr. Leslie stated.

"Yeah, but it gets worse." Red X said.

"How much worse?" Dr. Leslie asked curious to the extent of the total damage.

He quickly took off both of his gloves and his hand wrappings. Dr. Leslie gapped at what she saw.

"What caused this?" She asked.

"My suit was hit by a blast of power that causes bad luck. I was preparing an electric X to knock out a criminal and while it was warming. When I was about to shoot, it got hit and caused the suit to malfunction, then this happened." Red X explained.

"That's horrible, and dangerous. Why would you use such a dangerous chemical for your suit?" Dr. Leslie asked as she pulled him over and prepped him for and x-ray and other tests to figure out what was wrong with his side.

"There are a lot of strong and smart criminals in Jump City. I can handle most without the suit if I'm very careful and think everything through quick enough, but when they outnumber me I need the suit." Red X answered " There's also a criminal that's so skilled that I need the suits full capabilities to even attempt to match him, but even then it seems like he's only playing with me when I fight him. It's like he's on Batman's level." He finished almost sullenly.

**~~~~~short time skip~~~~~**

"So you have some minor fractures, some internal bruising, and one of your ribs is close to breaking. It's not broken yet but you have to take it easy on yourself. I'll wrap you pretty solidly with adhesive medical tape and put a splint in. Now about your xenothium situation" Dr. Leslie started. "I'm going to have to run a few checks about that."

"What exactly do you think is possible to happen?" Noah asked.

"I don't know, no one knows much about the possibilities of xenothium that well." She answered."Xenothium is so dangerous so not many people try to be around it for very long, and especially not long enough to contract anything from it."

"How are you going to check for issues then?" Noah questioned.

"I'm going to check of DNA alterations and through various other possibilities." Dr. Leslie explained "I still have some DNA on file as was requested it is locked securely away."

Dr. Leslie took a little sample of his DNA by taking a hair strand and left to go process it.

**~~~~~Another time skip~~~~~~**

"So how'd the analysis turn out?" Noah asked.

"It's strange, I'm not sure if that's good or bad." Dr. Leslie replied uncertain.

"Why what happened?" Noah asked.

"Just little sequences of DNA points have been altered." Dr. Leslie stated.

"Everywhere or just in my hands?" Noah wondered.

"Everywhere. It's hard to explain, but in simple terms the xenothium wasn't fully converted when it happened. The marks on your hand are the only burned spots, because they were the only things touching those panels. However when the panels went haywire some bits of xenothium was still in each bit and traveled with it all throughout your body. It's weird, but in a way makes sense. I don't think the marks will seal up, but they will probably stop hurting and about that faint glow it will probably leave in time. I'm sorry I just don't know what some of it means." Dr. Leslie explained.

~~~short discussion skip~~~

"So then I'd be able to go through a zeta tube now and it wouldn't recognize me fully, and I'd be able to get through one as Red X instead of Robin, right?" Noah said to sum up their discussion.

"Well if what you said about how those zeta tube things is true then probably yes." Dr. Leslie answered.

"Okay thanks for patching me up. I'm sorry for holding you up from your other patients." Noah said as he pulled his Red X uniform back on completely, mask and all.

"It wasn't any problem really, but I have something I want to know….Can you tell me why you left Bruce?" Dr. Leslie asked.

"Maybe some other time; I don't want to leave the city for too long without a protector. There's some dangerous people out there, plotting." Red X replied.

"Oh okay, good luck and don't go too hard on yourself or your body. It needs time to rest and heal." Leslie said.

"Okay I will thank you." Red X said as he got to the window.

"Wait one more thing, pay close to your bodies symptoms if anything is out of the ordinary come back, because we still don't know all of what happened with the xenothium."

"Okay I will, thanks again for all the help." Red X said again as he finally jumped out the window and flipped onto his motorcycle.

"I still don't get it, why'd he have to use such a dangerous chemical. He's lucky to still be alive those xenothium burns could have killed him if there was a greater amount of xenothium in the blast that caused that, well then I don't know what would've happened." Dr. Leslie said to herself.

**DUNA DUNA DUNA BATMAN!**

"Master Bruce, would you like any assistance?" Alfred offered Bruce as he held a silver tray with various assortments of drinks and sugars.

"No, thank you Alfred." Bruce said as he looked down at the papers.

They were in the Bat-Cave and Bruce was looking through various papers and recent activities. He was trying to figure out where the Joker ran off to after the attempt at a heist.

"It makes no sense, normally he'd have already made some kind of move by now. This time though he hasn't done anything, yet." Bruce said analyzing the papers.

"You'll catch him soon, Master Wayne." Alfred said.

"Hey Alfred I have a question I wanted to ask you." Bruce said plainly.

"Yes, ask away." Alfred replied.

"Have you ever heard of a criminal who wears an orange and black mask, with one eye hole?" Bruce said not looking up.

"No I don't believe I have, not one that I can remember anyways. Why was he one of the criminals in on the gala attack?" Alfred asked.

"According to Red X he was the one who orchestrated the whole thing, not the Joker." Bruce answered. "It wouldn't really help his case if some of the other heroes found out that the criminal himself told Red X about when and where the attack would be."

"No it definitely wouldn't, but aren't you the only one that knows that?" Alfred questioned.

"Yes, but without that information it is just as odd why Red X would be in Gotham to the other heroes. This made the headlines all over. It's a predicament." Bruce answered.

"Quite the predicament, indeed." Alfred said in agreement.

**Jump City**

Red X had just gotten back to the city, it was raining. Then he saw a shadow staring at him from the distance.

"Is that him again?" Red X thought to himself.

He used his grappling hook to get on the roof of the closest building he could and then he saw him.

"Slade what do you want, what was the point of telling me about that attack at the gala?" Red X said with a bit of venom.

"Why? For you to stop it, of course." Slade said calmly.

"Why would you want me to stop your own crime?" Red X said as he glared daggers at Slade. Slade was standing on the roof top of the building right across from him. Red X couldn't tell whether it was a Slade bot or the real thing though, either way getting into a fight with it wouldn't be a wise decision on his part and could aggravate his injuries.

"You fought well against then, my boy. You could have fought a lot better though." Slade said with a twinge of humor in his voice. "The performance was shockingly good though."

Red X had his hands at his sides just watching. He was slowly pulling out a hidden X, he would only get one shot and he'd have to make it count. He just needed to knock him off balance and then he could catch him in a net.

"I wouldn't try it if I were you. It won't work" Slade said knowingly.

Red X froze he couldn't believe it, he was caught. Then Red X put his arms down and intentionally bumped his side to knock one of his red smoke pellets onto the ground making it explode and put smoke all around. Red X threw the X and grabbed his boe-staff.

He flipped over the distance between him and Slade and swung it hard. Slade caught it in one hand and shoved him back.

"My boy I've already told you it won't work." Slade said showing Red X the X-shuriken he caught in his left hand and the boe-staff in his other hand.

"How did you know?" Red X asked stepping back a little and getting into another fighting stance.

"Tomorrow night there will be a similar attack in Central City, prepare yourself. " Slade said and with that upper-cut Red X and disappeared.

"Why is he telling me where he's going to strike?" Red X thought to himself as he felt himself falling.

**Team**

"Whoa Red X was in Gotham yesterday, that's so cool. Rob would've loved to have teamed up with him and Batman I think!" Wally said happily as he watched the TV.

"Why was he even there though?" Artemis asked.

"Maybe he had something to do with Batman?" Connor offered.

"I doubt it; it doesn't look like those two get along that well with each other." Artemis replied.

"Do you think he was part of it?" M'gann asked curious.

"I don't know, but he definitely knew about it." Artemis said. "Isn't that sort of obvious?"

"Hey don't imply anything bad about him! He's a cool dude he wouldn't be helping out the bad guys." Wally said defending Red X.

"There's no need to start an argument, none of us know the answer to it only Red X and Batman could." Kaldur said to flatten the flames of any imminent argument that might happen.

"True." They all agreed simultaneously.

**Slade**

"Just a little longer little X, then it'll be clear." Slade said while watching the computer screen that displayed Red X supporting himself with a wall to stay up. "All in due time."

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**A/N:** Sorry again about how long it took to update. First off HAPPY ANIVERSARY MY FRIENDS! This is one of the longer chapters I've posted I believe. Well I want to say about the DNA thing I wanted to clarify. Nothing whack happened to his genes per se but it just changed it up enough for him to not be fully recognized by the zeta tubes. It was my way of getting around that aspect, a thing he couldn't intentionally hide. He also isn't getting any super powers from this either, just saying.

So a few questions, if my friend still wants me to post their story which should come first my next update here or my posting of that story? Along with that what villain do you think he will be going against next chapter? Like always please review and thank you all. MERRY MARCHMAS!


	23. Save the Speedster

**A/N:** Hey guys, been awhile hasn't it? Sorry for not updating, time flies when you're doing other things. I focused. I have EOC's, Finals, an extreme term paper ( basically you pass then you pass the class or fail and fail the class) coming up soon and while I'm not sure how that'll affect my updating, I will try to pick up the pace! Summer is like four weeks away and then we shall have more updates! Hopefully.

**Everyone who reviewed, followed, or marked as favorite thank you!**

**Special thanks to: Red Shade43 **for helping me think something through**, and **Babyblue3752 for reminding me how long it has been since I've updated.

Please vote on my poll, and I'm considering doing a revision on 'What Matters'!

**DISCLAIMER:** With all these chapters I believe it's safe to say, I own nothing! If I did I would be rich.

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**Red X POV**

'What is up with this man, why does he tell me his plans? What does he have to gain by letting me in on his schemes?' Red X thought to himself and he was on his way back to his home. 'I have to fix my suit before I go; can't risk it malfunctioning.'

He got onto his motorcycle and disappeared quietly into the Jump City shadows to return home, making sure he wasn't followed.

Once he had arrived he tried to quickly switch back to his civvies so that if anyone showed up during the day, which no one probably would after all he did have a big sign saying "closed" on the door.

While he was changing he felt another small pinch of pain, coming from his ribs, arguing with his choice to pull the Red X suit shirt off over his head. He bit down on his lip and tried to do it slower. He pulled on a plain black shirt and then some blue jean shorts. That was when he heard the landline phone start ringing. He only had the landline because it came with the shop and already had a number enabled and everything.

He walked as fast as he could to the phone and checked the number, he recognized it as Bruce's cell phone number.

'Aw crap, not now Bruce not now! Where did you even get this number?' He thought to himself as he picked it up.

"Hello." Noah said slowly.

"Hello, Noah, I was in your city today because I had a prior arrangement here and I thought that you and I could discuss the business arrangement together, possibly over lunch?" Bruce said calmly. He actually only came so that he could check out the town and possibly look for Red X."I also sort of need a tour guide. I'm on the way to your shop right now actually, because a nice old man told me which way to go."

'What do I tell him? If I tell him I'm busy then he'll question what it is and I don't have anything to tell him! He can't be that far away, my hands are messed and I need to work on my suit.' Noah thought to his self hurriedly.

"S-sure Bruce I'll lead you around town! I know a great café that we can dine at, but I'm going to need a few minutes to tidy up." Noah answered. He was going to tidy up just because he had random bits of Red X armor and gadgets all over the place.

"Okay. Call me back when you're all ready and then I'll come and we'll get all set to go, bye. You could show me the workplace too." Bruce said with a casual tone in his voice. It was odd that the boy seemed a little nervous, but then again who wasn't a little worried when someone dropped by unexpectedly.

"See ya then Bruce, bye." Noah said. After he hung up he felt caught up in too much. 'Now I have to do a quick check on my systems and clean the place of any schematics and gadgets, just great.'

Noah moved as fast as his body would let him picking up any little thing that was around. His house was mostly clean, he didn't want anyone ever coming up and seeing his costume's stuff so he had almost everything hidden. He also had to throw a whole punch of false papers in his drawer so that if Bruce wanted to look into his desk drawer he wouldn't see any of the plans.

In the back room he already had a car set up there making it look like he worked on it with a jack underneath it and a tool cart by it. He was truthfully planning on building an X-car sometime soon, but he'd wait a little while before he'd do that.

"Great now it looks like I won't be able to fix my suit now with Mr. I'm going to stop by unexpectedly here." Noah said as he pulled his sofa bed into the halfway upright position so that it turned into a plain red couch. "I can still check out what's wrong with it, I haven't called him back yet." He had noticed it had been about ten minutes since he and Bruce had talked on the phone. "I've got to hurry."

He put the full suit and belt on to a table in his base under his shop. He pulled a special cover. The table was synched to his version of the Bat-Supercomputer so that he could get instant updates on how the suit was currently functioning, it only knew how the suit was doing for as long as it was on the table. If anything happened to it while it wasn't on the table he'd have to put the suit back on the table to get an update to what was wrong. It was only working because he had copied the design once again, even though he didn't like to do it, from Bruce's own equipment. It only analyzes the technology on the suit which is all he needed to get checked. He then turned the scanning process on.

'Crap it's been 15 minutes since the call.' Noah thought to himself. 'Gotta hurry.'

The screen scan took another three minutes. It notified him that the gloves had xenothium chemical on the X marks on the gloves and had multiple pages of alerts on malfunctioning pieces of tech on his suit.

"So basically I only have a 50% chance of the suit working properly when I try to use its functions, that's just great. Now I have to go meet Bruce. I'll just have to hope that I won't need to use my suit's abilities and only need what I have in my utility belt." Noah said walking over to the suit and picking it up and taking it with him to put it in its special case.

He took his utility belt and filled its pockets to brim with his equipment and thought to add a few new gadgets to the utility belt since he refused to use the suits functions.

"I think that'll do." He said as he looked at the clock. "Oh crap it's been 25 minutes since the call!"

Noah ran up into the shop and went to his room to put some gloves on over his wrapped hands, the gloves were black, and then he put on a brown jacket. Then he went to the front room to grab the landline.

It rang three times and then he heard it be picked up and a Bruce's voice saying "Hello."

"Hey Bruce, I'm ready now. How far away are you?" Noah asked casually.

"I'm at your advertisement sign." Bruce said as he eyed it. He'd been staring at it since the earlier call. He hadn't expected to wait half an hour for the boy to tidy up, but to be fair he did come unexpected.

"Okay then you just follow the signs and you'll be hear in about two or three minutes." Noah informed him. 'I really don't want him to come in here, if he notices anything I'm so going to be caught.' He thought nervously.

"Okay I'll see you when I get there." Bruce answered as he hung up.

True to his word Bruce was there in minutes. Bruce was riding in a not so casual Porsche Carrera GT, the most resent model. The car was black and had tinted windows.

"Well you sure know how to make an entrance." Noah said with a smirk.

"Hey Noah. Do you mind if I go in and use your facilities. I've been waiting out there for a while." Bruce said regularly.

"No problem, right this way." Noah said leading him straight to his bathroom.

"This is quite the place you've got here. It's nice and cozy for an auto shop." Bruce said with a smile.

Bruce noticed that both of Noah's hands were covered in gloves but he could've sworn he saw medical wrapping on under them. Bruce didn't comment on that and just used the restroom. He noticed a tooth brush and tooth paste in the bathroom along with dental floss and mouthwash. When Bruce finished he found Noah standing there with two sodas in his hands and Noah reached out to give him one.

"Thank you; I actually have a question for you Noah." Bruce asked.

"Sure what is it?" Noah said leading him to the front room.

"Do you live here?" Bruce asked curiously.

"Uh, yeah I actually do." Noah answered with hesitation. "So would like to look around or are you ready to go?"

"I'd like to check out your back room. You know to see what you have." Bruce replied.

"Okay, right this way." Noah was hoping everything was away and out of his sight.

"Over there are some of the latest models of motorcycle they can all zoom out probably as fast as one of your sport cars. We have them in every color, and for extra money you can have them customized." Noah said showing Bruce the wall covered with motorcycles and parts all over. "Would you like to see the show room to see some of the finished ones?"

"No I'm good, hey what's that over there." Bruce said pointing at the incomplete car.

The interior frame and the insides of the car were the only things really there. The doors were also on the car.

"It's my most recent project. It's the first car I've worked on." Noah replied as he led Bruce to it.

"It looks like a nice start."

"Thank you."

With that the two held small talk and talked about the business negotiation deciding what would happen while they headed to the café. The café was at the center of the city and they got seated quickly. Bruce had gotten black coffee, Noah had a milk shake. They ordered a small meal and it arrived pretty quickly. That's when Bruce asked about the bandages he thought he saw under the gloves.

"Hey can you take your glove off for a second?" Bruce asked him. He noticed that Noah kept holding his drink and struggled to hold up the milkshake a little.

"Uh, why?" Noah asked nervous.

"I was just wondering if something was wrong with your hand is all? You seem to be struggling to hold onto the milkshake." Bruce asked slightly concerned.

"Just a little, I sort of burned my hands working in the workshop. I'm not exactly familiar with cars as much as motorcycles and then I had a little mess up after I thought I had it set right and then it turned into my hands getting hurt. It's okay though they're fine." Noah said to cover up the real reason.

"You should really be careful when you work with dangerous materials." Bruce said concerned.

That's when Bruce got a call and had to leave. After Bruce left Noah headed as quickly as he could to Central city, he put his suit on grabbed his utility belt and floored it.

~~~~~~Magical Time Skip of Awesomeness~~~~~~

Red X had arrived in Central city and was just looking around. This time was different. Slade didn't tell him where they would attack; he just told them that there would be one. He was sitting on the highest perch he could find. He was watching for any criminal activity he could find.

'Why did you trust him again? He's must be trying something.' Red X thought but he was pulled out of them after he saw a blur of red running in the streets. It was being followed close behind by a blur of yellow and red.

'There's Wally and Barry but where's the bad guys?' He thought carefully. That's when Red X noticed Wally stop moving. It looked like he was stopping to flirt with girl that he could barely see from his perch. Something felt off about it though, his bat-paranoia was acting up for some reason. He got closer using his grappling hook to get to the top of the building right behind Kid Flash. It looked like the Flash hadn't noticed his protégé not following him anymore, yet.

"She looks familiar." Red X said as he got closer. It didn't make him feel better. He pulled out his binoculars to get a closer look. Most of her body was hidden and he could only see part of her face, but he could see all of Kid Flash's. It looked like he was striking out.

That's when Red X noticed a light blue glow forming from the girl. Now he knew why she looked familiar.

"KID FLASH LOOK OUT THAT'S KILLER FROST!" Red X yelled at the boy.

He ran just in time as the wall next to him got frozen. He looked to see where the voice that warned him came from and got hit by Mammoth. By this time Flash had finally came back.

"Stay sharp Kid." Flash said as he ran to hit the monster sized man.

"Was it you that warned me?" Kid Flash said getting up dazed.

"No." Flash said simply as Captain Cold also seemed to join the show.

Mister Freeze also walked out from behind inside the building. He left the door open showing that the entire first floor was frozen.

"Well this looks like a nice little party." Kid Flash said sarcastically and he started dodging ice blasts, the road behind him turning to ice.

"The party can't officially start without the guest of honor." Mister Freeze said with a little grin and a small chuckle.

"Who's the guest of honor?" Flash asked curious while dodging Mister Freeze's blasts.

Red X pulled out one of his X shuriken from the pouch on his belt and used it to hit Mister Freeze's freeze cannon out of his hand and then used his grappling hook to get down onto the ground with the others.

"Well he's here now." Killer Frost answered as she also started chucking ice blasts now. She aimed for the Flash but missed. Captain Cold and Killer Frost were now aiming in opposite directions trying to trap both speedsters in one area to freeze them while Mammoth was running starting to run at Red X. Mister Freeze also joined in on attacking him.

"What're you doing here, Red X?" Flash said curious and confused. What brought this boy to their city?

"Dancing and maybe we'll go sing karaoke later." Red X said jokingly as he ducked under Mister Freeze's lunge.

His side was killing him. He hadn't even been hit yet but his acrobatics and even regular dodging was hurting his side and his hands hurt again from the flipping. Red X quickly turned and shot Freeze with a Taser. The man's body shook and Red X used his chance to pull out one of his bo-staffs and broke his helmet's glass. Then he knocked him out. His hands hurt a ton as he had his hand wrapped around the staff.

"One down three to go." Kid Flash said. "I think you'd be hotter if you weren't so cold." He told Killer Frost.

"Kid, don't flirt with the bad guys." Flash said as he dodged another blast from Captain Cold and then he took his blaster. Flash hit Captain Cold in the face and did a quick take down.

"Yeah Flashboy you're not my type anyways." Killer Frost said with a smile. She leapt through the air and landed in the center of the street. All of the civilians had already left.

"We're going to talk about this whole situation when this is done." Flash said to Red X as Kid Flash ran right at Killer Frost.

"It's KID FLASH! It's **not** that hard to remember." Kid Flash said as he headed towards her as quick as he could, and that's very quick.

She shot the ice blast right at the ground in front of her and made a trial of it into a wall. She moved out of the way and Kid Flash ran right onto it.

Red X shot his grappling hook onto Kid Flash's back (it has an adhesive setting) and wedged his body into an area so that it wouldn't drag him with it and so that Kid Flash wouldn't run into the building. He didn't want to hurt his hands too much more than they already felt, he hoped the burning feeling would leave quickly, but he also didn't want his best friend getting hurt.

"C-CAN'T S-S-STOP GUYS!" Kid Flash shout as he expected feel a collision with a wall and closed his eyes. He reopened them when he didn't feel the collision. He had skidded to a stop right in front of the wall thanks to Red X who was holding his right arm and ribs in pain. Red X was dragged a little bit stopping him.

While Red X held the line right after Kid Flash stopped Mammoth punched Red X dead on, right into his unhurt side. He handsprung off the ground he hit and dodged a blast from Killer Frost.

"Thanks X." Kid Flash said quickly as he started running again full speed around Mammoth.

"No problem." Red X replied simply. The burning feeling seemed to intensify after his handspring but he stayed focused. He'd provide cover for Kid Flash.

"I've got Killer Frost." Flash said as he ran towards her. He was dodging everything sent at him; he could turn better than Kid Flash could.

Right before he got to her she shot one last blast and it went right at Kid Flash's feet. It his and Mammoth went to send him a punch straight into Kid Flash's face.

"KID!" Flash shouted right after he saw the blast go and captured Killer Frost. He saw his partner's feet get hit, but he wouldn't be able to move fast enough to protect him.

Red X pressed his belt, he knew he shouldn't have but he wouldn't let his friend take such a serious hit. He went to teleport and started feeling a shock through his whole body, but he still went through with it. He was teleported right above Kid Flash's back. He was still feeling the shocking sensation and surprised it worked, but he wouldn't spend his time focused on that as he used both of his feet to push the boy downwards under the hit and took the hit himself. That was the last thing he saw before his world went blank, Mammoth's fist nailing him in the side.

**Kid Flash POV**

Wally knew he was going to get hit. He saw the fist coming in slow motion he braced himself for impact again, but once again he never felt it hit. Instead he felt two feet push him downwards and saw the fist hit Red X dead on. He saw Red X's body fly through the air and into the ground. His body laid motionlessly and limp on the ground. There was some blood flowing out of it.

Kid Flash was shocked, he couldn't move, his eyes staying focused on Red X on the ground not moving!

Mammoth went to hit him again but this time it was Flash who took care of it. He watched as his uncle started beating the crap out of Mammoth in a flurry of sonic speed punches and kicks.

"W-we have to h-help Red X!" Kid Flash said panicked. He warmed his feet up quickly by vibrating them.

The police came quickly, but to Kid Flash it didn't come quick enough, and picked up all the criminals.

"What happened to him?" The officer motioned Red X's passed out body that was being held by Kid Flash.

"He protected me." Kid Flash said impatiently. They needed to leave. "Come on we need to hurry!"

With that Flash and Kid Flash ran to the nearest zeta-tube and did the override so that he could get Red X into the cave. The machine had kept saying "Unknown presence detected" when he tried to get him through so the Flash set up a temporary file for him under his label "Red X".

They were quick to get him to the medical wing. They ran through the building and the zeta-tube alerted everyone to all three of their entries.

Everyone had questioning looks on their faces but just followed to the med wing.

"What happened to him?" M'gann asked concerned.

"He took a hit for me we need to help him quickly!" Wally said quickly.

"Everyone get out now." The Flash ordered.

"B-but-"Wally started but was sent a serious look and everyone left.

It took forever to ever get his shirt off of him. While the top and bottom were separate initially it seems that the boy strung them together after putting them on and the belt ensures it stayed that way. He couldn't tell what to do but he noticed all the scars that were on the boy's chest. He also noticed that it appeared that the boy had a fractured rib that was probably broken now.

"You've seen a lot of trouble in your time haven't you?" Flash asked the unconscious body. He knew he wouldn't get a response. After several minutes spent working on his body and Red Tornado ran an x-ray on his body.

"His body is definitely going to hurt when he wakes up." Flash said to Red Tornado. "What's the damage?"

"He has two broken ribs and fractured two others." Red Tornado answered.

~~~~Time Skip~~~~

Red X woke up slowly and felt pain all over the place, and his hands still burned unbelievably.

'What happened again?' He asked himself as it all started coming back to him. 'Oh yeah.'

He heard two people arguing in by the door.

'Where am I?' He thought as he looked around getting his bearings. 'I'm in the cave!' he frantically thought. 'Did they peak under my mask?! Oh no if they did I'm so dead!'

He heard two people enter the room and pretended to still be unconscious.

"Are you serious? Why haven't you looked under his mask?" a disappointed voice said. He could distinguish who it was who was talking. It was Green Arrow upset.

"He has his right to a secret ID too and he isn't hostile. He doesn't mean any harm to any of us! I'm positive that he is on our side!" Flash said as he checked Red X's vitals.

"Are you really going to pass up this opportunity? Have you even told Bats that you have him? He might want to take this chance to find out who he is! This could be our best chance, the boy discovered Bats ID you know how impossible that is and yet you don't want to know who's under this mask?" Green Arrow said sounding angry.

"I do wonder who's under there, but I'm not going to be disrespectful and steal his mask off to find out who he is, especially after he practically saved Wally's life. He's hurt and he's a hero he deserves to have his secret ID to himself and if he wants us to know it he can tell us himself!" Flash said defending him.

"He probably knows our ID's too and you won't find out his just for that?" Green Arrow questioned.

"Pretty much." Flash said ending it.

"Then I'll do it myself, I don't trust him! He comes in randomly, finds out Batman's ID and Superman's too. If he was a truly a hero why would he care about their ID's?" Green Arrow said about to take off Red X's mask when he was stopped by Flash's hand. "Let go."

"Then quit trying to take his mask off." Flash said giving a glare.

"Why?" Green Arrow asked again.

"You both know the boy is awake." They all heard from the door. It scared the crap out of all of them. They heard the change of the heart beat on the monitor.

"Hah you noticed, ey Bats?" Red X said with a small chuckle, it hurt a little to laugh.

"Bats don't you agree with me. We should take his mask off now!" Green Arrow said hopeful that Batman would agree.

"Bats you know-"Flash started but didn't get to finish, because he was cut off.

"No I don't agree with you. He found mine out fair and square and I'll find out his." Batman said giving the boy a serious look.

"Eh good luck with that B." Red X said with a laugh, and he grabbed his hurting chest. "You know Ollie it really hurts that you don't trust me, but thankfully Barry over here nice. Thank you Barry." He said laughing.

Green Arrow gave a huge scowl. "SEE! I told you he knew our ID's!"

"Doesn't really matter though does it, so doesn't every other League member?" Flash said with a smile. 'This kid's amazing.' He thought cheerful.

"He **isn't** a League member and has no need to know what our ID's are. He could go spouting out what he knows and then that'd be the end of us with him knowing our names." Green Arrow said angrily.

"If I was a villain or worked with a villain then wouldn't you already be through?" Red X said logically.

The Flash smiled at that comment whereas Green Arrow glared and Batman just kept his face neutral.

"If you guys are done I'd like to talk to Red X." Batman said in the moments of quiet.

Red X unplugged the machines and started to try to get up but was told to stay down by the Flash.

"Actually I'd like to speak with him first, **alone**." Flash said and with that Batman and Green Arrow left. Batman had to force Green Arrow to leave, but he did. "That was impressive kid. I'm guessing you have everyone's ID locked up in your head?"

He smirked at that, but Flash wouldn't notice because of his mask. "Maybe, maybe not."

"Thank you for saving Wally, both times." The man said with a smile and a hand on his shoulder.

"No problem, thank you for not letting him take off my mask. Did anyone while I was gone? "He replied casually.

"You're welcome, and no they didn't I made sure of that. I didn't look either. Could you answer something for me now?" Flash asked.

"Depends on the question." He said curiously.

"Why were you there, what did they mean about 'guest of honor', and why were you in Gotham the other day?" Flash said quickly.

"That's more than one." He said smart-alecky.

"I know, can you just answer, please." Flash begged.

"Sure I was there, because I was told about an attack on your city that would be happening. I wanted to help, and couldn't warn you since I have no way to contact you guys. They were expecting me to come because the guy who sent them told me they were going to attack. Same reason for the Gotham appearance, he warned me then too." Red X explained.

"Why would he warn you?" Flash asked not sure how to feel on this. It sounded odd and if Green Arrow heard about it he would definitely think that he was right. Green Arrow would tell everyone, most likely, and that wouldn't end that well.

"I haven't got a clue. Can I get out of this bed now? Where's my shirt?" Red X said as he looked at his chest. It was under a blanket he could see a new stint and another stint added. His entire chest was medically wrapped and his belt was still on. That was weird.

"Yeah that is weird. Yeah I'll help you up; you have to be careful though. You're decently injured and I doubt you should be walking on your own, let alone trying to do hero work in your condition. Also about your shirt…. Well I sort of cut it off your body so I could patch you up. It was stuck to you." Flash answered honestly. The Flash then helped him careful into sitting up and then into a sitting position on the side of the bed.

"I'm still going to be doing my duty, and did you really need to cut it off of me?" Red X replied.

"You're too injured I wouldn't recommend it and yeah it sort of was necessary." Flash said. "Batman wants to talk to you so I'll help you up out of bed after he talks to you and then I'll take you to the zeta-tube and on your way home. I'll even give you a new shirt."

With that Flash left to be quickly replaced by Batman.

"Hey Bats. What did you want?" Red X said sitting up, slightly nervous.

"I could ask the same question of you." Batman replied. "Why were you in Central City?"

"Same reason I was in Gotham." Red X replied plainly.

Batman didn't know to say. The situation was a little awkward and the boy did save Kid Flash, and he also helped him in Gotham. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Red X said boredly trying to get up. He couldn't really get up easily and had trouble keeping his balance for a second. Batman put a hand on his shoulder to steady him out.

"You're pretty badly hurt. You shouldn't try to walk or get up. You also shouldn't do hero work for a while." Batman said informatively.

"I couldn't tell I was hurt," He replied sarcastically, but not hostilely, "I'm going to keep doing my duty though. I'll take more caution though. Could you pass me that cut up shirt over there?"

Batman did as he asked and gave the boy his cut up shirt. "I'd be careful if I were you. If you have a villain out there trying to send you around then I'd suggest you rest to get to your best ability."

"We both know you would keep doing your duty no matter your condition." Red X said in response. "Thank you for my shirt."

Batman had no clue what was going on in Jump City, but it couldn't be anything good if this one person could influence many others to follow his lead. One thing Batman knew though was that if anyone else knew that he was being informed on these attacks it'd be bad for him. Some might assume that the reason the guy told him where he was going to attack was to make the League trust Red X so that he could infiltrate the Justice League. That would make them all distrust him.

"Is that all you wanted to discuss?" Red X asked trying to move again. It was definitely difficult, he was hurting all over.

"I will be keeping tabs on you, just keep it that in mind." Batman warned and went to leave. Right when he went to go and took his hand off of Red X's shoulder and took a step Red X started to fall again. Batman turned quickly and steadied him.

"Awe Bats you really do care." Red X said jokingly. Batman helped him out the door and into Flash's arms.

"What's the closest location to Jump that we have, Bats?" Flash asked wondering.

"Wait we need to go back to Central. My cycle is still there and I can't leave that there. You can drop me off there and I'll drive home." Red X informed them.

"I'll take you then, you can't drive yourself in the condition you're in." Flash said concerned.

"If I took you to my house then you'll knew where I live and who I am and that's not happening." Red X said in return.

"I'll just take you to the city limits then." Flash replied.

"Fine." Red X said plainly.

"Oh yeah and here's that shirt you needed." Flash said handing Red X a plain red shirt with Flash's symbol on it.

Red X slowly put it on through the pain. Flash helped and Batman kept him steady. Then they walked out towards the main room.

**Wally POV**

"Wally quit moving around nervously, he'll be okay. Don't worry about it." Artemis said to consul him.

"It's my fault he got hurt though! He wouldn't have been hit if it wasn't for me." Wally said dejectedly.

"Wally it's not your fault, he chose to help you." M'gann said sympathetically.

"B-but it's my fault." Wally said again.

"Wally you can blame yourself if you want but it'll be okay as long as you learn from your actions and that'll make up for it. I'm sure he doesn't blame you for it, just like no one else blames you. You're the only one who thinks you're to blame." Kaldur said to him trying to cheer him up.

"Yeah Kid, I could've let you be hit by that but I didn't. You aren't to blame and I'm fine." Wally heard coming from around the corner. The next second Red X came out being supported by Batman and Flash.

The team gapped at him.

"You're alright! That's great news!" Wally said excitedly. "Is that my shirt?"

"Yep, sorry I cut his up." Flash answered.

The entire team was happy to see that he was okay. Not one of them minded Red X but none of them really knew him. All they did know was that he risked his life for one of their own.

The entire team thanked him and they went on their way. Wally was definitely going to ask his uncle why Red X was in their city. When he had asked Red X himself all he got in response was Red X saying "I really wanted your autograph so I came to your city for one." he knew that Red X was joking.

**Red X POV**

"So where's your bike?" Flash asked as he carried the boy through town.

"I can walk you know." He said the man.

"This is faster." Flash answered simply. "You know you would be good on their team."

Nothing else was said after that other than directions to the boy's cycle and then directions back to Jump city.

True to his word Flash left once he got to the city and the Flash wished him luck. He knew there would be a League meeting about both of the two city attacks that Red X intervened on.

He was riding carefully when a familiar shadow showed up again.

Red X stopped and waited for it to come to him.

"What do you want this time?" Red X said trying to appear uninjured and strong. He knew he couldn't last half a round If he got into any fight tonight. He'd only be able to handle a single hit.

"Why so hostile X?" Slade said with a chuckle. "I see you must like the Flash a lot."

"Why are you here, and why did you tell me where to go?" Red X asked ignoring what he said.

"I just wanted to show you something." Slade replied giving another sinister chuckle.

"Spit it out then." Red X replied he was getting a little unnerved.

"You and the Leaguers aren't on the same team." Slade said the sound of his voice showed that behind his mask he was grinning triumphantly.

"Yes we are. We are all heroes." Red X said unsure what Slade was trying to do.

"You may be playing on their side but in reality you're on a different team. They don't trust you." Slade said, his words slicing into him.

"You have no clue what you're talking about." Red X replied trying to appear calm.

"Do you truly believe that? If so then why is it that you had to go to the city yourself so that the heroes could know about the attacks?" Slade said knowingly.

Red X couldn't come up with a remark to say back to him.

"I hit a bull's eye didn't I?" Slade said with a chuckle.

"Slade, you're wrong." Red X said, but it wasn't convincing.

"You trust in me, and they don't trust in you." Slade said laughing again. His dark laughter ringing again.

"I don't trust you." Red X said with a growl.

"If you didn't then why is it you listened to me and went to both cities when I warned you?" Slade replied easily. "Whether you admit it or not, you trusted what I told you and you went like I knew you would. If you were trusted by them you wouldn't need to leave your city unattended. They won't accept you, you know this don't you?"

That hit a nerve. While Red X wasn't trusted by the League, yet, he could just pull off his mask shout "Hey I'm Robin" and they'd trust in everything he said just like they use to. Well he'd be questioned first before they took him back in.

"I don't trust you." Red X said a hint of anger in his voice. "Now go or I'll take you in now to end your terror on the city."

"I'll leave, you can trust me." Slade said. Each time that phrase came out of his mouth it made Red X want to hit him. "However, before I leave I would like to tell you that while you may work hard to gain their trust it can be shattered in a split instant." And with that he let out his most sinister laugh yet and disappeared.

Red X wasn't sure what the uneasy feeling was caused from or whether it was in fear or anger that he body wanted to shake in. That man, _Slade_, had managed bother him and insert a bit of each of those emotions into him.

'A-Am I in over my head?' Red X asked himself as he left to go back home, making sure he wasn't followed. When he woke up he'd be in more pain than he was now and he wasn't sure how he was going to handle crime over the next few days.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Young X, you performed very well considering your injuries." Slade's wicked voice said as he watched Red X's fight in Central city and his fight in Gotham on two of his giant monitors. "You could perform so much better if you worked with me, though. I'll give you some down time little X. You can rest easily…. for now."

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**A/N: **Hope you guys enjoyed it! Now this is definitely the longest one I have ever written. The more fics I write the longer I seem to be able to make them. I have a poll to decide my next update, but I'm not sure if I'll listen to it. Sorry if it was too long for some. I think I'm getting better at writing, just a little. Thanks for everyone who reviewed and I hope you review for this chapter. I want to know your thoughts on this and your reviews also help me out a lot with the writing process.


	24. Nightmare

**A/N:** I hope you all enjoyed last chapter and thank you for reviewing, following, and marking as favorite. I really appreciate it!

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

To Babyblue3752, no you didn't offend me lol. I was actually pretty happy that you wanted it to be updated and that's also why I gave you special thanks for reminding me it's been awhile. Everyone needs a reminder every now and then.

To eyes-of-sorrow3, I may consider it however I'm not sure at the moment. I'm sorry. I am thinking about it though. I could use it definitely.

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**Nightmares**

He was finally home. He made it into his couch bed and fell to sleep instantly. When he awoke it was with a startle. He could feel the pain of his wounds but he could also hear a person's dark and creepy cackle going all throughout his house.

"Who's there?" Noah called out with slight nervousness as he struggled to get out of his bed. He used one of his bo-staves to help him up. He would use it to defend himself if he needed to. His heart was pounding; it felt like it was going to jump out of his chest. 'I'm a hero, I can handle this.' He thought, but a voice in the back of his head said otherwise 'You're out of your league, boy.'

He went slowly through his house, quietly, not trying to be noticed by whomever it was that had broken in. The cackling got louder and more sinister for each step he took. It scared him even more than the first time he had fought Joker.

"Something wrong Little X?" The menacing voice mocked at his fear; he couldn't even figure out what was causing the feeling of fear for him. His hairs rose up on end all over his body, he had goose bumps pop up all over the place. His nerves were going crazy and his senses weren't helping. He couldn't locate the source of the voice with his eyes or ears. It sounded like it was coming from every direction.

"Who are you? _**Where**_ are you?" Noah shouted out into his pitch black hallway. He didn't remember turning off every light in his house. He needed to locate a light switch and quick, that'd hopefully show who it was that broke in.

"Are you scared little X? Or would you prefer to be called little Robin?" The voice darkly asked ignoring his questions. The dark chuckling started up again, making the room chill. It felt colder than the Gotham winter nights.

"H-how did you find that out?" Noah said nervously as his heart skipped a beat. 'Why are you feeling this, why are you acting like this? You've dealt with seasoned Gotham criminals; you even fought against the _**Joker!**_ A simple crook shouldn't make you feel this.' He berated himself. He walked further until he found a light switch. He flicked it but the lights didn't come back on. 'The lines are cut.'

"I know a lot Noah. You could say I know everything there is to know about you." The voice said with amusement.

"Prove it." Noah dared, he couldn't tell how the voice figured all of that out. He walked towards one of the secret entrances to his hideout. If he could make it there he could get on his cycle and out of there. He could get help, since he wasn't in much of a fighting condition. The voice didn't quickly respond and Noah didn't know if that scared him more or less than what he was already experiencing.

He approached on of the entrances, one more step and he'd be down there, _safe._

"Where are you trying to go?" The heinous voice asked. "It's futile to try to run."

He hit the hidden switch and he found himself rolling down the self-closing slot in the ground, it hurt a little but he would ignored the pain. He slid and landed onto a mat. All the lights there were off too. He never had those lights off, they were off the grid. The lines being cut couldn't affect his base. He noticed there was one light shining. It was the monitor showing the clip from his parent's fall to death. He was paralyzed for a second and then noticed that the monitor was showing it from his point of view.

The light from the screen showed the figure in the room. The figures one eye looking at him, focused on him.

"Hello Dick." The figure said triumph in his voice. Then the dark, evil laugh filled the room again.

"_S-Slade."_ Noah said his voice slightly despondent, he stuttered out of shock and surprise. He got into his home, into his base, and identified him with **all** of his ID's. He went right into a trap. He felt like everything in his stomach was about to come up. His heart felt ready to burst.

"Good bye Dick." Slade said as the floor below Noah seemingly evaporated. He felt the wind, he was free-falling and now in his old acrobat suit, he was going to hit the ground. He saw his parents falling too, but they were way lower than him. He saw them hit, and then he closed his eye right before he hit the ground.

He woke up shaking and in a voiceless shout on the floor. 'I must have rolled out of bed while I was falling in the dream' he thought to himself, his side hurt decently as he had landed on it. There wasn't a creepy voice making any noise and he was sweating. He felt the pain explode all around his body and he realized what had happened.

"I-it was only a dream, just a horrible nightmare." Noah said as relief started to flood into his body. (**A/N:** The nightmare started after the first line and ended after happened, I just wanted to make sure I didn't confuse anyone with this sorry).

Noah spent a few minutes laying on the ground, until he decided to pull himself up using the side of the couch-bed and the floor, and turned on a bunch of lights. 'I'm not going to be able to go back to sleep tonight.'

This had been the first nightmare he had in a long time. He stumbled towards his front room and figured he'd watch T.V., check out the news, look out for crime, and possibly watch some cartoons. It had been awhile since he'd watched any cartoons. He pulled out and extended one of his bo-staves and used it like a crutch. He grabbed a glass and poured himself a cup of milk. His hands strangely didn't hurt all that much today.

**The Team**

Everyone was in their civvies just occupying their time. They hadn't received a mission in a while and there wasn't anything to do. Wally was sitting on the couch just passing his time, he still felt guilty over being as he claimed "the main reason Red X got hurt" the team had kept trying to convince him otherwise but he didn't really listen.

Conner was in the gym room beating on a punching bag, maliciously. Kaldur was sitting by Wally on the couch, watching the news. Artemis was off hanging out with Zatanna and M'gann was in the kitchen trying to bake a batch of chocolate cookies. The news had mentioned how strange, yet lucky, it was that Red X had been there to help stop both of the attacks on Gotham and Central city. The news announcer even said how happy they were that Red X had been there to help, and then made a, not very serious, statement saying that "With the recent events of Red X helping his fellow heroes, maybe we'll be seeing a new addition to the Justice League?" Wally doubted the League would do it though; some of the heroes didn't like Red X.

"Come on Wally, if Red X didn't want to protect you then he wouldn't have done it." M'gann said to him reassuringly. She wanted to help him feel better.

"Maybe he didn't realize he would've been the one getting hurt for doing it?" Wally replied back swiftly.

"Didn't you once say, while hitting on a girl when you were in your costume, that getting hurt and protecting people was part of the gig and it was a 'no biggy'?" Kaldur said Wally; he was hoping that it would make him feel better.

"Yeah but that doesn't mean anything! I heard Flash say to Batman that he wasn't sure if leaving him before he got home was a good thing, because he wasn't driving as well as he normally would've and since he was hurt." Wally answered dejectedly.

"I don't think he'd be happy hearing you blame yourself, Wally." They heard come from Zatanna as she and Artemis walked through the doorway.

"No, bu-" Wally started but was cut off by Artemis's response.

"Not buts, he wouldn't blame you and he didn't blame you. He even said that he chose to take the hit and didn't blame you. Besides what can you do?" Artemis asked rhetorically. "It's not like you can make a house call."

"Hello Megan!" They all heard M'gann say as she put her hand to her head in her signature fashion. "We can just go to Jump City so Wally can ask Red X and hear what he has to say!" She said happily.

At that Wally jumped up off the couch.

"You're right! Let's all go to Jump City!" Wally said with new energy and joy. That's when everyone started smelling some smoke and burning cookies.

"Ah my cookies!" M'gann said as she ran to pull them out. "They're burned, again."

As soon as she put them down Wally, like always, started to devour a handful in a second. "They're still good." Wally said with a small smile as he scarfed them down.

"I'll go get Conner." M'gann said slightly dejected.

"Already here." Conner said simply as he entered the room covered with sweat. "What are we doing?"

"Going to Jump City, come on! To the BIO-SHIP!" Wally said like a pretend knight as he ran off to the bio-ship.

All of them were going to go.

**Watchtower**

"You do realize that we are going to have to have a meeting about him sometime." Aquaman said plainly to the room full of the Leaguers.

"Yes, let's do it now! We need to talk about him!" Green Arrow stated while looking towards Flash and Batman. "You have to admit it's more than a little suspicious that he knew about both of the attacks, before they occurred, and intervened in both of them."

"Do we honestly have to discuss this now? The man isn't bad, he saved Wally!" Flash defended.

"Yes, but that could all be part of his ruse, he could be planning to make himself look good to the League so that-"Green Arrow went on with saying until he was cut off.

"If you're done now, this conversation is over." Batman said flatly giving a look and going through the zeta-tube.

"What's with him?" Green Arrow said motioning to the zeta-tube with his thumb. Flash decided he would leave too; he'd hang out with Wally and the team today.

**The team**

They had just arrived, in their civvies, with the decision that they would look around in groups and search for Red X.

"I call Conner!" Wally said as he grabbed on to boy's shoulder.

"Huh?" Conner replied confused.

M'gann looked a little disappointed for a second then she grew a small smile. "Guess that means it's you and me this time Kaldur!" Kaldur simply nodded to her "So it is."

The team quickly separated off in different directions.

**Wally and Conner**

"So how're you Conner?" Wally said trying to make casual conversation as they walked.

Conner nodded his head forward at the question and just kept walking.

"Okay then, how about I teach you how to play some of those video games that I play all the time?" Wally offered out.

"Hey Wally, I have a question." Conner said as the speedster turn to face him, interested in what he had to say. "Why'd you pick me to go with?"

Wally grinned and said "You have the best hearing, you'd hear if he was around! And because I wanted to talk with you, ya know?"

Conner nodded his head at that since it was true after all, he did have super-hearing. "What about?"

"Anything! Like do you want to learn how to play any of those videogames Robin and I use to play?" Wally offered.

They continued walking down the street with random bits of chatter coming from either of them at a time.

**Artemis and Zatanna**

"So we're going back there again?" Zatanna guessed with a smirk.

"Well I haven't got a clue about anything anywhere around here or what there is to do here, so yeah." Artemis replied casually.

"So you want him to be like a tour guide for us or just to sit around his shop?" Zatanna asked curiously.

"I have no clue." Artemis answered honestly.

They wandered for a couple minutes until they found his shop again.

"Do you think it's open?" Zatanna asked.

"Maybe." Artemis said looking at the building. "Well there's a T.V. on, so I think it might be."

Artemis walked over to the glass half of the door and looked in. She couldn't see anyone inside but there were lights on in the back.

"I don't see anyone." Zatanna noted.

Artemis pulled on the door and it didn't go, it was locked. "It's locked; I guess we'll try knocking." Artemis said.

Zatanna knocked on the door and waited a second, and then Artemis chose to knock a couple times as well.

"I'm coming; I'm coming just wait a second." They heard from within the shop.

**3****rd**** Person Noah, Artemis, Zatanna**

'Who could it be?' Noah thought to himself. He looked at the monitor. 'I wonder, why are they here?'

He got over to the door, hiding his pain, as he hoped that they wouldn't put together the similarities in injuries. After all the only one who actually knew much about them was Wally, Flash, and Batman.

"Hello, long time no see you two." Noah said as he unlocked the door. "Come on in."

"Thank you." Zatanna said as she entered.

"Thanks." Artemis also said.

"Well take a seat where you want to, did you need something?" Noah asked, as he stumbled a little trying to escort them.

"Well we were wondering, if you didn't mind, if you could show us around the city." Zatanna said with a smile. "Are you okay? Oh my god you look hurt."

"Whoa what happened to you?" Artemis asked finally noticing what Zatanna had pointed out.

"Yeah I'm fine, just got jumped yesterday." Noah answered hoping they would leave it there.

He led them to sit down at a small area and asked them both if they'd like anything to drink.

"Sure." Zatanna said simply with a small smile.

"No, thanks." Artemis answered.

Noah made his way to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

"So do you want a Nesquik, a soda, apple juice or water?" Noah said listing off what he had inside the fridge.

"Um, Nesquik please." Zatanna answered after a second.

He grabbed the Nesquik and closed the door. He made his way back to them with the Nesquik in hand.

"Here you go." Noah said handing it to her.

"Thanks." She replied kindly as she took it from his offering hand.

"So you two need a tour guide then?" Noah said with a small smile.

"We also were wondering if you knew anything about your cities' hero?" Artemis said hopeful.

"I know a bit, but not a lot about him. Sorry." He said apologetically.

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**A/N:** Sorry about the chapter being so short, I sort of jipped you. Next chapter will be a direct continuation. I was going to have this chapter be longer but I was unable to write for the last several weeks, because of papers and assignments I had to do, and I lost my train of thought on this chapter. Sorry.

My thinking with him having a nightmare that scared him a little was that, he's been through a lot and he still is a kid after all. Plus, going to sleep uncertain about something can give you some strange dreams and he was uncertain about Slade, hence why Slade was in it : ).

I hope the chapter wasn't too bad, might need to revise it myself again. I hope you enjoyed it and that you review. Your feedback helps me write some of the chapters. Oh and for those who are wondering Behind His Smile will be continued into a full story now, because I received a lot of requests for it. Thank you all, I'm also planning on making another story too (not a one-shot).


	25. A Day in the City

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything, they are DC's property. However if this was made into a comic by DC that'd be pretty epic!

**A/N: **Hey everyone, been a while hasn't it? Sorry about the extremely long delay :). I didn't mean to take so long honestly, but I was nailed pretty hard by writer's block. I am going to try to vanquish it now though! Thank you to everyone who reads, reviews, likes, follows, or marks this story as a favorite; it makes me happy! :D

**Special Thanks:** Broken Antler in Winter for working to motivating me and not calling the Shadows on me ;). I also owe a thanks to Fudotwin17, I felt motivated to write after reading the update of their story. I'd like to thank Red Shade43 as well.

" " are talking

' ' are thoughts

"' "' Are mind com

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(Direct continuation from last chapter)

"That's okay; whatever you know will be fine!" Zatanna insisted with a cheerful smile.

"Sure, but if you don't mind me asking, why do you want to know about him?" Noah asked even though he figured he knew the answer, they wanted to find him.

He watched them hesitate for a second, and before Artemis could attempt to come up with a cover (something she knew she wasn't that good at) Zatanna spoke up quickly. "We have a report in our English class about superheroes and we thought 'Why not write about the newest superhero?' and that led us here, to his city, you see."

It was a believable cover, but Noah knew the true reason they were here or at least he believed he did.

"Oh I get it, so you're researching him then and what better way to research him than to go to his city." Noah replied.

"Exactly!" Artemis said jumping on board the cover.

"So do you have any idea where you want to go first?" Noah asked intrigued, he figured that he would hang out with them for a little bit and then tell them common knowledge facts about Red X, stuff anyone on a Jump City street would know, and maybe they'd run into members of the team.

"I don't know, where would you recommend?" Artemis asked, she was slightly puzzled, after all where would a dark looking hero hang out in a bright city.

"I don't really know, honestly." Noah replied, he was being truthful since there weren't many places he hung out as Red X that he could be seen at.

"Why not just wander around town and see what we find? That could be fun!" Zatanna recommended happily.

"Yeah, that sounds good." Artemis agreed since she couldn't think of a better course of action.

"Okay, well then you two wait here and I'll go get ready." Noah said with a small smile.

"Okay, we'll wait right here for you to get back." Zatanna replied.

"Yeah." Artemis agreed.

"I'll be back in a few minutes." Noah said as he walked to his room. He was going to get changed and wear his costume underneath his clothing just in case there was trouble around the city. He'd have his belt within reach, only if he needed to use it. He hadn't fully fixed it yet.

It took him a few minutes to get the preparations ready. He had switched into his Red X costume (minus the domino mask, the cover mask, and the belt) and over it he wore blue jeans, a black tee-shirt with a brown jacket over top of it, and had put regular shoe covers over his Red X shoes. He put both of his masks inside his right pocket and wrapped his belt like a sash underneath his shirt (over his Red X costume). When he walked back into the room he had left them in he found Artemis looking around and Zatanna just sitting down watching the cartoon that was on the TV, classic Looney Tunes.

"He's taking a while to get dressed." Artemis noted while looking at the random motivational portraits around the room, which came with the shop. They didn't notice him in the hallway yet.

"Well he is injured." Zatanna said while continuing to watch the show. Artemis started to stare at the TV too and didn't notice Noah walk up behind her.

"He's done now." Noah replied with a suppressed chuckle as he spooked Artemis and Zatanna.

"Oh my god, please don't do that again." Zatanna said with her hand over her heart. Artemis had to resist the urge she had to hit him, because he was injured.

"Sorry." Noah replied trying to stifle his laughter. "So are you ready to go?"

"Yeah." They both replied and they set off.

**Wally and Conner**

They had been wandering for a while but they hadn't bumped into or came close to finding Red X.

"So where to next?" Wally asked as he walked next to Conner.

"I don't know." Conner said flatly.

"Try to listen, concentrate." Wally insisted.

"I am." Conner grumbled a little.

"Concentrate harder, focus!" Wally pushed further.

"It's not working, because he's not here and even if he was he wouldn't be talking about being a hero out in public." Conner stated a little grumpy because of Wally.

"I didn't think of that." Wally admitted, "Sorry pal."

With that they continued on their search for Red X.

**Team HQ**

"WALLY? TEAM? ANYYONE AROUND HERE?" Flash shouted as he ran around the cave, he had already circled the entire place three times and hadn't found anyone.

"They left earlier to go find Red X." Came the monotone voice of Red Tornado.

"What, you've got to be kidding me!" Flash said a little distraught.

"Did a matter arise that requires the team's assistance?" Red Tornado questioned.

"No, it wasn't anything major; I was just bored and didn't want to deal with the other League members, so I wanted to hang out with the team." Flash explained.

"If you would still like to interact with the team they are currently in Jump City, searching for Red X." Red Tornado replied.

"I'll consider it." Flash said as he zoomed into the zeta-tube.

**M'gann and Kaldur**

M'gann and Kaldur had been making light conversation while searching out for Red X. They had been spitballing ideas between each other while they walked.

"Maybe we could ask someone from around here?" M'gann offered.

"That may be a wise decision, as none of our other attempts have bore fruit." Kaldur replied.

M'gann saw a group of little kids that were all playing a superhero super villain game. "Maybe we could ask them?"

"Okay, let us tread carefully about our question though." Kaldur said.

"Okay." M'gann replied as they walked together to the little group of kids in the park.

The group was full of around nine children, five boys and four girls. Three of the children had blonde hair and varying shades of hazel eyes, they all appeared to be siblings; four of the children had brown hair with green, brown, and blue eye; one of the last two children had red hair and pale skin with green eyes, and the other child had raven black hair and cerulean blue eyes with a tan and freckles. All of the kids had varying lengths of hair with the girls having shoulder length hair and the boys' hair being short. One boy had a Batman symbol shirt on, a girl had a Flash shirt on, the siblings each wore a Superman shirt (to match), the red head boy wore a Robin shirt and the raven haired boy wore a Red X shirt, and the last child (a dirty blonde haired boy) wore a black t-shirt that had a white skull on the center of the shirt (front and back) and on the shoulders too with a red x on the skull.

"I think we should ask that one." M'gann said thoughtfully, the Robin symbol shirt made her a little sad because the entire team missed him and with him they could've found Red X, well probably.

"The one with the Red X shirt?" Kaldur asked to make sure.

"Yeah, sounds like a good idea, right?" M'gann said with a big grin.

"Yes, definitely." Kaldur replied.

They made their way over to the kid in the Red X shirt and prepared to think of some questions, hoping that they wouldn't scare him.

"Batman could too beat the Flash." They heard the boy in the Batman shirt say.

"No way, Batman doesn't have any powers Flash would win." The kid in the Flash suit argued.

"Batman could get his legs stuck together." The bat-boy said.

"But Flash could get out of that, or Kid Flash could help him out." The Flash boy rebutted.

"Well Superman could beat them both." One of the kids in the Superman shirt replied.

"Not if Batman had kryptonite." The bat-boy said back.

The conversation went like that until the children noticed M'gann and Kaldur walking closer and then they quieted down a little, unsure what the two strangers wanted.

"Hello." M'gann said with a smile.

"Um hello lady." The bat-boy said back slightly anxious.

"Why is this weird lady talking to us?" One of the super-shirt kids whispered to another.

"I don't know, should we get mom?" Another of the kids whispered back.

"We were just wondering if you knew anything about Red X." M'gann started carefully and curiously with a smile.

"Who does?" The bat-boy responded.

"We just thought that since you were citizens here that you might know something about him." Kaldur spoke thoughtfully.

"No, no one knows anything about Red X." One of the super-shirts said in a rude tone.

"Oh okay." M'gann said a little distraught, she thought they could've gotten something from the kids.

"Thank you for your time." Kaldur said as they started to walk away.

"Wait!" The boy in the Red X shirt spoke quietly.

"Huh, yes?" M'gann said as she stopped.

"I do know a little bit about him but only as much as everyone else would." The x-boy said quietly.

"Really? Can you share some of that knowledge with us?" Kaldur asked kindly.

"Sure, if you want I could-" x-boy started but was cut off by the bat-boy "No don't tell them anything, they could be bad guys!"

"What?" M'gann asked shocked.

"No I promise, we aren't bad guys." Kaldur said to the boy.

"Then why do you want to know it!" Bat-boy raised his voice slightly.

"W-we we're…. uh we're fans of his." M'gann said thinking of a quick cover.

"Yes, we are fans of Red X, but we do not live here so we do not get to learn that much about him." Kaldur supported.

The children seemed to accept their answer and told Kaldur and M'gann all that they had known about Red X, which was all common knowledge from the news channels.

"Thank you all."M'gann said as she and Kaldur waved good bye to the children and left the park.

"They were nice kids." M'gann said with a smile.

"Yes, they were indeed." Kaldur agreed.

**Artemis, Noah, Zatanna**

"So that's all I know about him." Noah said as he took a sip of his drink. They had stopped by an outdoor pizza place while they talked about the city hero.

"Not a lot then, huh?" Artemis said as she took another bite of pizza.

"Artemis" Zatanna said quietly "don't be rude, he helped us out."

"I know, I know." Artemis replied casually.

"It's okay, sorry I couldn't be of much help. Red X is a mystery, though, he is there and then gone, just like Batman." Noah said with a small smile. He was having some trouble with his hands he noticed, they were shaking slightly even at lifting a light object.

"No, it's okay, it's not your fault. " Zatanna said trying to provide a little comfort.

"Yeah, it's fine." Artemis agreed.

They continued a little and then Zatanna noticed Noah struggling a little.

"Are you okay, do you need some help?" Zatanna asked a little concerned; Noah had been struggling at holding his soda up.

"Huh, no I'm doing fine don't worry." Noah said to calm her a little; he wasn't feeling that bad just a little hurt.

"Are you sure?" Artemis added in.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Noah said again.

That's when they heard a familiar voice shout from across the street.

"HEY THAT'S ARTEMIS AND ZATANNA! WHAT ARE THEY DOING EATING WITHOUT US?!" Wally shouted as he ditched Conner while running at a normal human sprint.

Conner kept up his regular pace and crossed carefully as he went to join up with them.

"What are you two doing? You're eating without everyone?" Wally said unhappily.

"We never made a time to meet back up with everyone." Artemis stated plainly.

At this point Conner had caught up with Wally and they both took a seat on one of the sides of the circular bench table. They sat to the right of Noah and the left of Artemis and Zatanna.

"So who's the guy?" Conner asked noticing an unfamiliar face.

"Oh this is Noah." Zatanna said cheerfully "And Noah that is Conner, and you remember Wally over here don't you?" she said as she gestured to her friends.

"Nice to meet you Conner." Noah said as he held out a hand for Conner to shake. Conner nodded and went to grab Noah's hand, he squeezed a little too tightly though and Noah had to hide his discomfort.

Conner felt something familiar about Noah but he couldn't put his finger on it.

"Would you too like to join us for lunch?" Noah offered generously "If you want we can order another pizza." He said thoughtfully since half it was already gone and he knew Wally's appetite.

"Yeah we would love to join you!" Wally said happily as he grabbed two of the remaining pieces and putting them on a plate.

"Thank you." Conner said simply as he grabbed a single slice. He had learned from M'gann and Kaldur that it was part of good manners to thank someone if they gave you something or did something for you.

"No prob." Noah said with a wide smile.

Then Wally noticed something out of the side of his eye. "HEY BEAUTIFUL, WE'RE OVER HERE!" Wally shouted as he started to wave widely.

Noah and the others turned their gaze to where Wally was shouting and saw that M'gann and Kaldur had been walking nearby and Wally's calling attracted their attention. M'gann and Kaldur started walking towards the group and one they got to their table they took the open seat.

"Hey everyone." M'gann said to the group with a smile.

"Hello." Kaldur said simply.

"This is Kal and Megan." Wally said to Noah who reached his hand out to shake Kaldur's, even though his persona had met Kaldur before.

"Hello, I'm Noah." Noah greeted with a smile. Something about him felt just a little familiar to M'gann.

"Nice to meet you, Noah." M'gann said to him while Kaldur took and shook his hand.

"Likewise." Noah said simply with a smile. "So are all of them here doing research for the same report as you?" he asked Zatanna and Artemis.

"Uhh.." Artemis started but couldn't think of a quick excuse.

"No," Zatanna said quickly "they're uh, they're working on a different project about Red X and uh they're helping us on our paper too."

"'Nice save."' Artemis said through their recently reestablished mind-link.

"Yeah, we're just helping out." Wally said in an attempt at confirming it to Noah.

"Well that's nice, I'm sorry I couldn't help you more with your report." Noah spoke politely.

"No, it's okay we have enough information for the paper." Zatanna replied with a small smile, she didn't want him to feel bad.

"Here, I'll make it up to you, you guys can order whatever you want and I'll pay for it." Noah said happily, he was going to pay for it from the start but he figured they needed more food since there was only one slice left in the box.

"That's okay, you don't have to." M'gann tried telling him.

"I know, but I want to." Noah replied casually.

"Well okay, if you insist Wally said with a smile as he decided what to order.

"'Wally, what are you doing?"' Kaldur asked over the link.

"'He told us to order whatever we wanted and it wouldn't be polite to pass on his offer."' Wally reasoned. '"Plus we don't have any money Kal."'

"'Don't order too much, though, alright?"' Kaldur thought to Wally.

"'Yeah don't take advantage of his offer, he's hurt after all."' Zatanna said through the link, mainly at Wally.

"'Huh? He doesn't look hurt to me."' Wally replied as Noah took note of the food they wanted to order.

'Same old Wally.' Noah thought to himself with a small chuckle. "So is that all you guy want? Don't you want to order something too Megan, Kal, Conner?"

"No, thank you, I'm fine." M'gann assured him.

"Yes we don't want to impose on you." Kaldur told him. All Conner did was shake his head.

"It wouldn't be imposing at all; I have enough money for whatever you want, I'm sure of that." Noah insisted.

"Well then, if it wouldn't be too much of a bother, could I have a small salad?" M'gann asked hoping he wouldn't mind.

"No problem, is that all you want?" Noah asked and received a nod to confirm it, she then gave a smile and told him thank you.

Noah got up slowly, with a small amount of pain radiating from his hurt side. "Okay, I'll be right back. I'm going to go put the order in and tell them where to go."

After Noah slowly left the table they entered a full blown metal conversation. "'So who is he?'" M'gann asked curiously.

"'He's the owner of a local motor shop, he's a cool dude."' Artemis replied.

"'He also got into a race with Artemis a while back and that's how we met him."' Zatanna added.

"'So, why is he here?"' Conner asked abruptly.

"'Well we thought it'd be a good idea to ask a local to show us around town and tell us what he knows about Red X."' Zatanna answered.

"'We did the same thing with a group of kids earlier today!"' M'gann beamed, she was happy that she wasn't the only one with the idea.

"'Great minds think alike!"' Zatanna said with a big smile.

"'Ah! Why didn't we think of that?" Wally complained mentally.

'"Well she did say great minds."' Artemis replied, stifling her laugh.

"'Hey!"' Wally started only to be cut off by Kaldur telling them not to start arguing.

**Slade**

"Well I think the boy has had enough rest." Slade said to himself as he watched his monitors again. He said the boy had needed some time to rest and he gave him some, a few hours more than half a day that should be enough, at least that's what Slade thought.

"So who to send today?" He asked no one in particular. "Hm, it'll take a little arranging but I can make this fun."

Slade made a few calls and using his connections he had broken Cinderblock out of jail, without even having to leave his base. He also made a couple calls to the H.I.V.E for the use of a particular student of theirs, Kyd Wykkyd; a boy who wore a black cowl and whose rest of the suit was a pale purple (except for his cloves, tights, shoes, and cape which were all black; except for a silver disk to hold his cape on and his silver belt). The boy had the power to teleport, an ability Red X seemed to fancy as he had displayed a decent amount of use of it. Kyd Wykkyd could teleport the people he was touching as well, and he had the ability to put a hole in any surface just by touching the material. His cape was special as well, because of the sharp edges that were capable of cutting through steel. (**A/N: **I didn't make that up; the powers and the cape cutting through steel thing come from the wiki).

"These two together should provide a fairly good challenge to the boy." Slade decided as he prepared a camera to record the outcome. 'With his injuries he should be pushed to his limits, maybe even beyond.' Slade deduced.

**Noah**

Noah was waiting for the orders to come up, but right then he got a buzz on his communicator. That could only mean one thing, trouble. He looked at the team just sitting there, he could tell they were having a mental conversation, but he had to try and think of a way to ditch them so he could save the civilians.

A police car drove by with sirens blaring and darting off in the direction of the center of the city. An ambulance and three other police cars came by; he had to get to the emergency. Then he noticed the team, minus Zatanna get up and run down an alley. Zatanna appeared to be writing on a piece of paper. Once finished writing she ran down the same alley the team did.

'Well that'll make it a little easier.' Noah thought to himself. He ordered the food, ask them to deliver it to the table, then asked for a pen and paper to leave a message for them, and then paid for the food.

When he went back to the table he read them message.

_Sorry about leaving, without telling you. Something came up; we might've found a lead  
>on Red X, and we couldn't let the opportunity pass. We all want to thank you for the meal<br>and for all the help you gave us, we couldn't have gotten as far as we did without you. We  
>are also sorry that we couldn't thank you properly, but we really appreciate what you did.<em>

_Sincerely,  
>Zatanna, Artemis, Megan, Wally, Kal, and Conner <em>

'Well now I'll leave them a message, in case they come back.' Noah decided.

_You're welcome for the help, today was very fun. I enjoyed it a lot and you  
>don't have to worry about repaying me, because I wanted to pay. This thank you<br>was enough for me. The meals are still yours, and I paid for them already. I also  
>had to leave, because of a business arrangement that came up. I hope you don't mind.<em>

_Sincerely, _

_Noah Schultz_

With that Noah left, the table (he gave them a tip of course) and went down a different alley than the team did.

**Team**

"Was it really alright to just leave a note and leave?" M'gann asked a little unsure, it seemed a bit rude to her.

"It was rude, but we need to help save the people." Kaldur said.

"How are we going to get ready out here?" Wally asked as he looked around, they didn't bring their suits. Well honestly Conner was technically in his suit and M'gann could morph her suit on, but none of the others could.

"I have that covered." Zatanna replied as she prepared to chant her spell." Egnahc sehtolc otni ruo smrofinu!"

With that they all suddenly had their uniforms on and were officially ready for battle.

"Let's get going and then we can get back to lunch!" Kid Flash said happily.

They went on foot until they got to where the criminals were.

"I know that one is Cinderblock but who's the other one?" Kid Flash asked as he gestured to the unfamiliar villain.

"Me?" He asked with his finger pointed at himself. "I'm Kyd Wykkyd."

"'Be careful, we don't know his abilities."' Kaldur told the team.

"'Where's Red X?"' M'gann asked.

"'Don't know, but let's deal with this first."' Artemis replied as she notched an arrow in her bow and pointed it at Kyd.

"Watch where you're pointing that thing." Kyd said as Cinderblock started rushing at the team. Superboy started running forward to counterattack right back at Cinderblock.

Superboy's fist hit dead on with Cinderblock's and a crushing sound were heard. Cinderblock started to grumble and Aqualad ran forward with his water bearers in the shape of a hammer. Right before the bearers hit Cinderblock, Kyd got in the way and teleported Cinderblock and himself above Superboy and Aqualad.

Cinderblock punched Superboy into the ground and Kyd went to slice Aqualad, but narrowly missed and instead chopped a stop sign in half. Kid Flash rushed in and punched Cinderblock hard enough to knock him off balance enough for Superboy to fling him off. Kyd teleported back to Cinderblock and then teleported both of them away again. It took an extra second, but they appeared behind Artemis and Zatanna.

"Oh crap." Artemis said as she dodged a punch and shot a few arrows quickly at Kyd and Cinderblock. Cinderblock broke them in his arm and Kyd sliced them with his cape.

"They're pretty quiet" Zatanna noted as she rolled off to the side. M'gann tried to use her powers to hold Cinderblock at bay but he was managing to push through step by step. Superboy ran up and slammed Cinderblock into a nearby wall. Aqualad charged at Kyd and went to hit him with his water bearers, but before he hit Kyd teleported again.

"Missed me." Kyd said as he teleported again. This time he appeared behind Superboy and sliced him. Superboy blocked but he was still cut a little.

"'That's sharp."' Superboy said.

Kid Flash ran to hit Kyd, but instead he ran into Superboy as Kyd teleported again. "That's so annoying."

"Stand still." Artemis said as she worked on targeting him.

"'One of us needs to distract him so we can hit him."' Artemis said.

Artemis fired two more arrows but Kyd sliced them both and teleported again. This time he appeared behind Zatanna, but right before he sliced her a red smoke screen appeared and Zatanna was pulled off her feet by someone who was running, albeit rather slowly.

"Are you okay?" Came the metallic voice.

"R-Red X?" Zatanna asked.

"The one and only." Red X said with a smirk, he was happy he arrived before something bad happened.

Red X stared at the villain with curious eyes, this one wasn't one he was familiar with. "Who are you?" He asked.

"The name's Kyd, Kyd Wykkyd." He announced, one of the only things he said all battle.

Red X glared at him trying to size him up. "Do you guys know his abilities?" Red X asked.

"He can teleport and can cut through metals with his cape." Kaldur informed Red X.

"Hm." Red X said as he thought, 'This'll be difficult. It'd be easier if I'd have time to properly fix my belt so I could fight fully, but the team is here that's good.'

Then Red X felt someone poking his shoulder and looked down into his arms and saw Zatanna.

"Um, thanks for the save but can you put me down now please?" She asked, slightly embarrassed.

"Oh, yeah sorry." Red X said as he gently placed her down.

"It's okay." She said as she stood up.

Kid Flash and Superboy got up and Kid Flash saw that Red X finally was here. "Hey you're here. I wanted to ask, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, but now's not the time for this." Red X said as he barely dodged Kyd.

Kyd teleported again to appear right above Red X, which Red X countered by throwing some already made X's. Kyd sliced them in two and then blew up on his cape, wrecking the edges.

"Ah, my cape!" Kyd said teleporting again. This time he appeared behind Artemis, but was quickly tackled by Kid Flash.

"You're not doing that this time!" Kid Flash shouted in Kyd's ear.

Cinderblock had started to rise and went on another rampage once he saw Red X. He ran like a bull and because of his injuries he wasn't going to make it out of the way in time or at least that was until he was caught into a red blur and Cinderblock was knocked into the ground by Superboy. Red X looked at his savior and saw none other than the Flash.

"Thanks for the save." Red X said gladly.

"No problem, I just returned the favor from the other day." Flash said with a smile. "After all you saved Kid and besides and let one of our brothers on the side of justice get hurt can I?"

"What're you doing here?" Kid Flash asked as he pulled up Kyd.

"I was bored and wanted to hang out, but you weren't at your base. I'm happy I came though seeing as there might've been a problem if I didn't." Flash answered focused on the battle. "You know you're really injured, yet you're still out here fighting."

"Hey, what can I say? I'm stubborn" Red X stated as he got out of Flash's arms.

"So, what do ya say? Why don't we just wrap this up and have some fun?" Flash said as he prepared to run down the kid. 'Why would a kid want to be a villain?' He wondered.

Kyd escaped Kid Flash's grasp and teleported again.

"Ah, quit doing that!" Kid Flash shouted as he looked around. Each of them were looking around carefully, trying to figure out where he'd appear next.

This time he popped up behind Superboy, which wasn't a good decision in the end because as soon as he appeared he was hit hard by Superboy. He teleported once more and appeared by M'gann and felt something hit him, not something hard just like a small object and then the feeling was gone. What hit him, unbeknownst to him, was a tracer of Red X's so that he could tell where he was going to appear and where he would go.

M'gann flung him with her power and he teleported again, this time next to Cinderblock's body.

"This is too much of a hassle and isn't worth the money; I wasn't told I'd have to fight a Leaguer and a team of sidekicks. Two people just can't do that." Kyd said to himself as he teleported away with Cinderblock.

"Well that was eventful." Artemis said as the villains fled.

"So they were hired to attack you, specifically, then?" Kid Flash asked.

"Apparently." Red X said casually, he figured that he already knew who it was who had hired them.

"'Wally"' M'gann said through their mind link "'now's your chance."'

"'Yeah, Kid Mouth, you can do what we came here to do." Artemis said.

"'Go on do it!'" Zatanna urged.

"'Okay, alright, alright I'll do it now."' Kid Flash replied. "So are you okay, after what happened?"

"I'm fine, is that why you came all the way over here" Red X asked already knowing the answer.

"Uh, well yeah, we wanted to make sure you were okay. You were pretty banged up." Kid Flash said.

"Well thanks, glad you care." Red X replied. He was actually happy that it seemed his Red X persona had a friend in Kid Flash. "Aren't you guys supposed to be a covert team?"

"Yeah, doesn't always work out that way though." Artemis answered.

"Why?" Aqualad asked.

"You're all here, out in the open, together as a team in a city that none of you belong to." He replied.

It took a few seconds, but then it clicked. "Oh crap…" Kid Flash said.

"We have to get out of here." Kaldur said.

"Fast." Zatanna added.

"Here, I'll give you some cover." Red X said as he threw three red smoke pellets at the ground and they exploded. They all ran into an empty alley that no one could see into and the Zatanna did another spell change all of them back from their uniforms to their civilian clothes.

"If there is someone targeting you then you need some assistance." Flash said slightly worried. Sure all the heroes got hurt on duty now and then, but they normally had someone either watching their back or covering their city until they were in fighting condition again.

"I'm fine, really." Red X said in response. "I can handle this."

"Dude!" Wally said in a complaining like voice. "Are you trying to say that you could've handled them, if we weren't here to help, in your condition?"

"It's true, who knows what would've happened if Flash wasn't here to pull you out of the way." Kaldur added in.

"Besides, everyone could use a hand every now and then." Zatanna said as she looked at him.

All Conner did was nod his agreement, and M'gann agreed too.

"The team could help him out!" M'gann piped in.

"Yeah! We could!" Wally said ecstatically.

"Um, I didn't agree to anything yet." Red X said as they continued planning.

"It isn't a bad offer; you could hang out with them, and make sure your city stayed safe." Flash said, he wanted the kid to say yes. He was a little worried, because after all the kid might've lost a limb or worse if it wasn't for him arriving in the nick of time.

"I'll consider it, but I actually have somewhere I need to be." Red X said as he threw another smoke pellet down and disappeared.

"He's very stubborn." Flash said. He was changed into his civvies as well when Zatanna said her spell; everyone was except Red X. "Reminds me so much of Batman, seriously."

"So what do you want to do now?" Kid Flash asked everyone.

"Well, and I know it might be a longshot, but I think we should go back to that restaurant." Zatanna said, after all you never know the guy could be there waiting if her note blew away.

"We're going to eat?" Barry asked. "Awesome!"

"Yeah, we never got our food from earlier!" Kid Flash added in.

"Well let's go back then and eat out there." Kaldur said as they headed back to the restaurant.

It took them a couple minutes, but they got back there and on their table was all the food that Wally had asked Noah for and a note (it wasn't Zatanna's).

"Hey look at that he ordered all the food we asked him for!" Wally said even happier than before.

"You mean all the food you asked him for." Artemis said flatly as Zatanna held back a giggle.

"Asked who for?" Barry questioned, he didn't even know how they would pay for it. As far as he knew none of them had money, but the food was cold too.

"A guy we met named Noah." M'gann said as she looked at the salad she had ordered. "I feel a little bad that we didn't thank him to his face and then ditched him."

"Yeah, I do too." Kaldur agreed.

"Well we could always go to his shop and thank him there." Zatanna offered as an idea.

"Yeah we could!" Artemis said as the thought struck her.

"He has a shop?" Barry asked puzzled, who was Noah?

"Yeah it's a motorcycle shop." Artemis answered.

"How old is this dude?" Barry asked, why would they be with a motorcycle shop owner?

"He's around our age." Wally said, much to Barry's disbelief.

"No way, how could a kid afford that?" Barry questioned.

"He's rich, I think." Zatanna answered this time.

"Okay, so we'll visit him, but how are we going to pay for this?" Barry asked as his final question.

This time none of them answered the question, instead the owner answered as he was within earshot. "It was already paid for by the kid, he's a good customer." The owner answered happily.

"Okay, thank you." Barry replied to the man.

"So we'll eat and then go?" Wally asked unsure on what they were planning.

"Well it depends on how long the food has been here, but I don't think we should eat it, it looks like it has been sitting here for a while." Barry answered.

"Yeah, we'll eat back at the cave." Artemis said as they all got up. "I'll lead the way."

"Do you remember the way this time?" Zatanna asked.

"Um…. no, do you?" Artemis asked.

"Yes, so I guess I'm leading the way then." Zatanna said with a small smile from her friends forgetfulness. "Okay, it's this way."

**Slade**

"Hm, this is strange." Slade said to himself. "So there's a team for the sidekicks as well, it shouldn't mess with my plans too much."

Kyd Wykkyd and Cinderblock were both back at his base, they had arrived a few minute before and Kyd had been waiting to get paid.

"So when am I getting paid?" Kyd asked unwisely.

"It's in the suitcase over there." Slade answered still watching the feed; he got more video of that team than he did Red X. In fact there was nearly no action shots of Red X on there, and none pushing his limits. This was unsatisfactory work indeed.

Kyd went to the case and opened it, but when he did he noticed something. "This isn't even half the money that you agreed upon with H.I.V.E!"

"Yes, because you didn't even accomplish half of your task, the performance was unsatisfactory." Slade said with a bitter bite to his tone. "Now leave."

"I want the full payment." Kyd said stubbornly, after all his weaponized cape was torn and dulled because of Red X and he worked hard.

"This is all you will get, leave now by choice or later in a handbag." Slade warned, there wasn't much that irritated more than a stubborn lackey who failed his mission and then still requests payment.

"Not 'til I'm paid!" Kyd said back stubbornly.

"Cinderblock." Slade said simply, which made Cinderblock rise and rush at Kyd to hit him.

"Nice try." Kyd said as he teleported away from Cinderblock and to the right of Slade to do a mid-air kick. He went through with it, but instead of hitting Slade's mask he had his foot and leg caught in Slade's hand that then slammed his body into a pillar.

"I'll leave now." Kyd spoke up as he teleported away, he knew that he wouldn't be a match for that man.

"Good." Slade said as he went back to his devices. "They shouldn't pose much of a problem."

He paused the video at something he thought was interesting. "Twice now he has risked injury to himself to save other heroes, that could be of some use."

**Team**

The team and Barry had followed Zatanna's lead and had ended up at the sign that told them where to go. It had gone off without a cinch, except that others who didn't know the way kept trying to lead.

"It's right this way." Zatanna said as she guided them, the shop was within sight.

They walked until they reached the shop and then they saw a closed sign on the door, but the lights were on.

"It's closed." Conner noted.

"It was earlier too." Artemis said. "The lights are on though."

"Isn't it rude to barge in?"M'gann asked.

"Yeah, that's why we're going to knock on the door." Zatanna said.

"There are people talking in there." Conner noted.

"Huh?" Wally asked. "Oh yeah super hearing, how many are in?"

"Don't be nosey Wally." Barry reminded him. "Everyone deserves their privacy."

"Well let's knock now and then we can apologize if we interrupt anything." Artemis said as she began knocking on the door.

"One second, I'll be right there." They heard through the glass, it was Noah's voice. Then the door opened and Noah gave them all a smile and welcomed them in.

"Hello, welcome back." Noah said to everyone. Then someone new walked out to the front room where everyone else was. He had black hair, white skin, and was dressed in a business suit. "Oh sorry, let me introduce you all. Everyone this is my business associate, and friend, _Bruce Wayne_."

"Nice to meet you all." Bruce said with a smile as he held out a hand for them to shake.

Noah was happy that he went right home after he left the team, because he managed to run into Bruce Wayne, who was on his way to meet Noah without calling ahead again. Noah was pretty sure he was snooping around Jump City a little for Red X, but he wasn't sure why.

"This is Wally, Kal, Conner, Megan, Zatanna, and Artemis. The other person I don't know sorry." Noah said.

"I've already met Artemis and that man is named Barry." Bruce said.

"Hello, Mr. Wayne. Uh…. Thanks for helping me out earlier." Artemis said slightly nervous.

"How do you know Barry?" M'gann asked.

"Oh, he helped me out one time when I went to Central City." Bruce explained hoping that they wouldn't delve too far into it. The main reason why he made it known that he knew Barry in this case was because Barry was friendly with people he knew and probably wouldn't have played along.

"We didn't interrupt anything did we?" Kaldur asked hoping they hadn't messed anything up.

"No don't worry, everything's fine, we were just talking." Bruce told him. "I actually need to leave, though, considering the time." Bruce said as he started to leave. He honestly wondered what the team was doing in Jump, but he'd ask Barry for the details later. He would also ask how the team knew him as well, considering it was pretty strange, but then again it could just be him over thinking it.

"So what brings you all here?" Noah asks as he brings them to the chairs. Conner, M'gann, and Wally sat on the red couch that he had and the others sat in random other chairs or barstools that sat around the room.

"We wanted to thank you for the food." M'gann started.

"Yeah, it was nice of you to order it a buy it for us and we're sorry we left, something came up." Zatanna continued.

"No, don't worry about it, it's fine, things can pop up randomly and I understand that. After all, I had to leave too because of an unexpected appointment popping up." Noah explained.

"So you work with Bruce Wayne?" Artemis asked.

"Yeah, well sort of, we're business associates." Noah explained. Noah hated to admit it, but his main source of income, that keeps him able to be in the hero business, comes from the contract that Bruce and he made.

"Oh I get it." Barry said with understanding. "But, if you don't mind me asking, why are you running a company? You are just a kid after all shouldn't your parents be running it, no offense?"

"Well my parents can't really run the business." Noah said slightly awkward.

"Why can't they?" Conner asked, because he was still confused why couldn't they run the business?

"Uh, well that's because they're no longer around." Noah said giving a hint at his meaning.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Barry said concerned.

"'I still don't get it."' Conner asked genuinely confused.

"'I don't either."' M'gann said in agreement.

"'He means that his parents are gone, as in they're dead."' Artemis informed them.

"'That's… so sad."' M'gann said back.

"It's okay, they've been gone for a while now and it was hard at first, but I had a friend, well he was more of a father to me, who helped me out." Noah informed, he still felt comfort being around Bruce but he wasn't going to run to him he was going to prove that he was big enough to be a hero.

"That's good; he sounds like a nice guy." Wally said, that was a little sad to hear.

"He is." Noah said simply.

"So, you seem to spend a lot of time here, is your house close by?" Zatanna said to try to change the tone of the conversation.

"Yeah, really close." Noah said with a huge grin on his face.

"How close is that?" Zatanna asked curious.

"So close that you're sitting in it right now." He said as his grin grew. They all seemed a little shocked at what he had said, but that added to the fun.

"Why do you live in a motor shop?" M'gann asked, after all why not in a small cozy house?

"Because it's cheap, affordable, and it's nice and cozy here." Noah answered.

They continued talking for a little longer and then the team and Barry left and made their way to the bio-ship. Then they flew back to the cave so that they could relax and sleep or go back to their houses.

Noah on the other hand was going to work on figuring out where his tracer went to so that he could find out who sent Kyd Wykkyd to attack, but he pretty much knew who it was because Cinderblock was there too. He had to admit that if it wasn't for Barry he just might've been killed, maybe he would need someone to look out for him if just for a week for him to heal up just a little.

**Bruce**

Bruce was currently sitting in a Jump City hotel for no reason other than the fact that Alfred would probably lecture him if he went all the way back to Gotham at this hour, the guy worried too much. The reason he had came here was to see how Red X was doing. He wouldn't admit it, but the guy was still a kid and a stubborn one at that, and with the injuries he sustained from saving Kid Flash he wouldn't be able to fight on the same level he normally would, and the villains would take advantage of that, which made him worry a little about the boy.

He hadn't found the kid when he came, though. He heard an attack happened, but the team intercepted and a rumor stated that Flash had saved Red X; he'd be able to confirm all of this with Barry later. For now he'd just rest for once.

He didn't even intend on going to Noah's when he was here, but after he ran into him while on the streets he didn't really have much of a choice. He ended up spending more time there than he wanted so his search for Red X couldn't continue.

He also couldn't stand that his search for his own son hadn't progressed either. He may have trained him well, but even with that he should have at least one hint on where he was but he didn't. It wasn't something he enjoyed, it tormented him not knowing where he was, but he'd find him eventually.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ /\/\/\/\/\/\/\

**A/N:** Well guys I got really motivated and started writing, and writing, and writing. To create my longest chapter ever! Does this make up for the long absence? I lost my track a couple times writing this, because people kept interrupting me in the middle of my writing and then I couldn't write for hours. So I have figured out a complex and perfect ending for this story! It won't be for a long time, but it will be amazing and none of you will expect what will happen! MWAHAHAHAHA :p lol. Being honest I came up with this the other day and I loved it. It will be the ending as long as I remember it when it's time to write the last chapters.

Now I have some things to say.

1 Should I have the team help him out while he's injured, have no one help him out, or someone else (if so who)?

2 I may need some help with Behind His Smile and if you're willing or if I use an idea that you give me then I will credit you, and if your idea inspires me then I'll still credit you. Same thing with the other two stories I'm working on (if you want to give an idea and I use it then I'll credit you), thank you.

3 Did you enjoy the chapter?

4 Please review!

Thank all of you!


	26. Update

Hey everyone it's been a while, and I am sorry that it has taken me so long to update my stories. I haven't had much time to honestly write anything for any of my stories since my last update, which is a bummer since I was planning on doing a Valentine's story this year, but it wasn't to be I suppose.

I have been working on the next chapter of this story since I posted the last update, and it has been coming along and I hope that I can finish the next chapter soon. I will also work on the other stories as well, possibly one or two of them. I have been brainstorming for a prequel and a sequel to my other story 'Why' and I've been thinking about working with 'Behind His Smile?' but I'll need to wait for some free time before I can update any of them.

I also would like to ask something of any of you, who may be interested. I've been using a regular picture from the show for my cover picture since the start of the story, and I was curious as to whether any of you would be interested in making a cover for me? I'll give anyone who does create a cover full credit for their work of art and a thank you. If you're interested, please tell me through messaging or review. Please and thank you to all of you. I hope you all forgive me for taking so long to update the story and I'm sorry about the time it is taking me to write the next chapter, but I want you to know that I haven't forgotten about the story, and I haven't stopped working on it either.

Thank you all!

Sincerely,

Jclark775


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer:** I still don't own it, they're still DC's characters, but who knows maybe in the future :P just kidding.

**A/N:** Sorry about the long wait for the new chapter, I've been busy enough that haven't had much time to write this story. Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, or marked this story as favorite! Thanks for the help everyone!

~Mail time song from Blue's Clues~

Writer's Reply

To Grayson's Gal: Yeah I see you're point, thank you for the idea suggestions they were very clever!

To Broken Antler in Winter: You've been a great help in spurring many ideas so you have ton of my thanks.

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**Noah's POV**

Noah was slightly shocked. When he had woken up and turned on the news he hadn't expected to see that the subject of conversation was Red X, Flash and the team. Some photographer had managed to get a lucky shot that depicted Red X standing side-by-side with Flash and the team. Everybody's' faces in the picture was completely clear except for Superboy's, who it appeared had been turning at the time, and Zatanna's, whose face wasn't even in the picture. That was lucky because those two were the only ones who didn't have anything that could prevent their secret ID's from being discovered.

Noah turned up the volume on the television and started to listen closely to what they were saying:

_"Yesterday afternoon, there was an attack committed by two villains in Jump City." Started the male news anchor, " There were no casualties; however, there was minor damage to the surrounding area. One villain was recognized as Cinderblock, but the identity of the other villain is still unknown. The two villains were sufficiently fought off, but Red X did not avert the crisis alone. Eye witness accounts state that Red X was assisted by the Flash, a Justice League member, along with a group consisting of League members' __**sidekicks**__ and three unkowns, who also appear to be __**sidekicks **__of major League members. The three confirmed __**sidekicks **__are Aqualad, Artemis, and Kid Flash. The other three bear resemblence to League members: Martian Manhunter, Superman and Zatara. Perhaps they are __**sidekicks **__being kept under wraps by our Justice League members?"_

_"That may just be, Jeff," The female news anchor started in, "It is still unknown what League involvement, here in Jump City, with Red X means. Perhaps the League is inviting our own local __**hero**__ to join? Or maybe the League is forming a team consisting of __**sidekicks **__and wished to have our __**hero**__, Red X, lead the group? What is your take on this Tom?" The female news anchor said as they threw it off to their anchor at the scene of the incident._

_"Well, Jill, I am still uncertain for the reason behind the __**sidekicks **__and the Flash's purpose for coming to Jump City, but I do know one thing. According to eye witness accounts, the group of __**sidekicks**__ were the first to respond, followed soon after by __**heroes **__Red X and the Flash. This is the second time that the Flash and Red X have teamed up together, maybe this could be a possible sign of a hero partnership between Red X and the Flash? _

Noah turned off the television and knew that the team wouldn't like it if they saw that the news called them sidekicks. It wouldn't be good at all.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

**Young Justice**

Kaldur had turned on the news as part of his daily routine, but when he did he hadn't expected that they were going to be the topic of discussion for the anchors. It seemed the channels were fixating on the appearance of a group of heroes appearing in Jump city, except they were referring to them as sidekicks. They called the team a group of sidekicks that were caught in a superhero team-up of the Flash and Red X. Kaldur could already tell that his team shouldn't see this so he changed to channel. Kaldur had been the first one awake, but he knew he'd be having company soon as M'gann would wake up and Conner would too. Thankfully, he could prevent his team from seeing the news as everyone was staying at the mountain, but he didn't know how long it'd be until the team found out.

"Good morning, Kaldur." M'gann said as she came into the living room. Conner came in behind her and nodded his head at their leader.

"Good morning to both of you as well." Kaldur replied, "Here, Conner, I've turned it to your channel for you." The screen was showing Conner's favorite channel, the static screen.

"You don't want to watch your news first?" Conner asked as he sat in the middle of the sofa.

"I have already watched the news and there is nothing of importance on it yet, today." Kaldur answered.

"If you say so." Conner replied as he began to focus on the static. M'gann was working on breakfast for the group. She was planning on trying to make some omelets.

"I heard that the League is having a meeting today." M'gann said as she was gathering her supplies.

"About what?" Kaldur questioned, and why hadn't he heard of it?

"I'm not sure, but I know they are, all the members are gathering today." M'gann informed, "I heard it from Black Canary. She said it's part of the reason that all of us stayed here."

That made Kaldur even more curious.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

**At the Watch Tower**

The members of the League were all gathered in a room with a U-shaped table.

"What is the reason for this sudden meeting?" Questioned Flash.

"We have a few points to discuss today, and we should all be present for this discussion." Superman answered. "Everyone, take a seat."

Each member took their seat and waited for Superman to begin.

"The first topic of discussion is the disappearance of Robin." Superman announced, and Batman gave him a small glare, as if challenging him.

"It has come to our attention that without Robin the team we established for the younger heroes is a member short and now lacks a member with any technological proficiency." Superman stated firmly.

"It is understood that Batman is searching for his partner and will find him, but without a hacker on their team the younger heroes cannot do as many of their covert missions that their team was established to do. The group cannot retrieve information, files or documents from the villains." Wonder Woman continued.

Everyone's attention was focused toward Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. The bat's glare intensified.

"And where are you going with this?" Batman inquired.

"We need to have a fill-in for Robin on the team to keep them satisfied and to be able to supply them with more missions." Superman stated.

"We would like you to train a temporary fill-in for Robin." Wonder Woman informed. That incited a shocked reaction from the rest of the heroes.

"I refuse." Batman replied as he gave what some of the heroes present would call his most terrifying "bat-glare" yet.

"Without a fill-in the team can't go on nearly as many missions, unless you're willing to be the one filling in for Robin?" The Man of Steel asked.

"Once again, I refuse." Batman stated firmly.

"Then do you propose that we leave the team on standby, and have the team do nothing?" Superman questioned. Batman gave the man a harsh look but did not respond. The room was getting tense.

"I propose that we move on to the next matter for now, the real reason we called everyone together. All in favor?" Wonder Woman asked to remove some of the tension. The first topic had been something they wanted to question Batman about alone, but since Batman wouldn't answer them the two had to make it part of the meeting.

"I" came the unison reply of all the heroes present.

"Okay, the next matter at hand is Red X." Wonder Woman announced.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Noah had gotten dressed in his Red X suit and left his hideout. There wasn't much of an emergency that he was needed for, but he was okay with just being prepared. His injuries still hurt him, but that was why he wasn't doing much and just sat in camouflage mode. His suit and belt was properly functioning again, all except for his teleportation ability, but he was still happy. It meant less strain on his wounds.

He just traveled the city like that, waiting for any trouble to appear, but it didn't seem like any was coming. A few minor crimes were committed, but the police were on top of things today it seemed, as every time a crime happened the police were right at the scene.

It wasn't until midday that something happened that the police couldn't handle. A man had gone into a local eating establishment, a McDonalds. It seemed like an attempt at a hostage situation, a poor and not well planned attempt but that didn't change much. The man was a Caucasian, around 5"6' in a black trench coat and brown pants, and he had fiery red hair. The man went in and pulled out a gun. The man was clearly not in the right state-of-mind. He opened his jacket and flashed everyone in the room a bomb. He held his gun in his right hand and the detonator for the bomb in his left.

Red X didn't know the reasoning behind taking up a McDonalds, but he wasn't going to let the innocent people in the building be injured. The officers and their cars weren't anywhere in sight. They couldn't risk getting closer to the building without the man blowing his bomb up.

Red X was planning on entering the building through the duct system on the top of the building, but the man turned frantic while inside the building. Red X couldn't hear a word that was being said in the building, but he did see an officer in the building. It seemed as if the officer had been eating his lunch off-duty before the man had burst into the building. The officer pulled his gun on the man, and in response the man shot the officer and ran out the door of the building. The man was now crazed after shooting someone and knew he would be arrest, so he ran.

Red X un-camouflaged himself, which in turn caused the man to be even more startled. The man changed his path towards the sign of the establishment. He threw his bomb at the base of the black pole and pressed the detonator. The next moments seemed to happen in slow motion. Red X went to shoot adhesive Xs at the sign to slow the fall, but he was too slow. Then, out of nowhere before the sign could fall into another building or crush any bystanders a giant green dinosaur appeared out of nowhere and caught the pole in its mouth.

"What?" Red X thought bewildered. The whites of his mask grew wider, but only for a moment as he returned to the criminal. Red X ran after him and threw two constrictor Xs, which wrapped around his legs and torso.

Once the criminal was caught and his binds were secure, Red X looked back towards the green dinosaur. That strange creature had bewildered him. Red X saw the dinosaur place the sign carefully back onto the group, and then the strange, green dinosaur morphed into a strange, green human boy. The boy was wearing a black and purple costume with gray gloves and purple shoes, and for some reason the green boy was wearing a mask.

The green boy had gigantic stars in his eyes and was drooling a tad bit. "W-wowzers! Y-you're, you're. Red X!" the changeling shouted gleefully.

"Uh, yeah." Red X said somewhat confused, "And who're you?"

"My name's Beast Boy." The changeling said happily.

"Well it's nice to meet you, Beast Boy 'The giant green dinosaur'," Red X replied. That made Beast Boy laugh.

"I can turn into way more than just a dinosaurs." Beast Boy said proudly.

"Like what?" Red X prodded.

"Like any animal," Beast Boy announced, "except I don't do seahorses." Red X laughed a little behind his mask.

The two were having a perfectly good conversation, but that's when the crowd started to gather. The crowd was starting to surround them, and so Red X decided it would be a good time to leave.

"I think we should continue this elsewhere." Red X said hushed.

"Huh? Why?" Beast Boy asked, not noticing the crowd that was slowly encircling them.

"Meet me on top of that Wayne Enterprises building." Red X said as he pointed to it. The building was high, which made it a perfect escape place.

"Okay." Beast Boy said. "Do you want a lift?" Beast Boy offered as he turned into a Pterodactyl.

"No thanks, I have my own way of getting up there." Red X decline. Honestly, Red X wanted to try riding the dinosaur, but he knew he couldn't just leave his motorcycle down here. So Red X camouflaged himself and his motorcycle again and moved the motorcycle down the block, to an uncrowded area, and left it. With that, Red X ran to the building he told Beast Boy to fly atop and used his grappling hook to bring himself to the top.

Once he reached the top of the building, Red X noticed Beast Boy leaning on the "W" of the Wayne Enterprises sign. Red X snuck around the "W", still camouflaged, and poked Beast Boy's right shoulder. Red X stifled his laughed at the spooked expression on Beast Boy's face.

"Whoa, I must be feeling things.." Beast Boy said to himself. Then Beast Boy gave a little laugh at himself for being scared of nothing.

Then Red X poked him again, on his other shoulder. This time Beast Boy jumped away from the letter and did a bunch of cheesy, karate chops, which looked as if they came from a movie, in the air.

"Hya-ha-hey-wha!" Beast Boy shouted as he swung his arms. This time Red X couldn't control his laughter and it flowed free, spooking Beast Boy once more.

"Ah, it's just like from that movie, 'Ghost of the Enterprise!'" Beast Boy squealed. Red X was just flat out laughing at this point. He de-camouflaged himself to show he meant no harm.

"It's just me." Red X said through his laugh.

"Duude!" Beast Boy began, "Don't do that! You almost gave me a heart attack."

"Okay, okay. I'll remember that next time." Red X said with a smile, not that Beast Boy could see. It had been a while since he had gotten such a good laughing fit from anyone or anything. It felt good to laugh.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

**A/N:** I am sorry that it has taken me so long to update (and that it's short), and I plan to update this as soon as I can. I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I am planning on rewriting "The True Robin" story. I have also wrote a new story that I think most of you would enjoy, called "Robin, The Prince of Thieves".

As always, thank you for reading and please review. The more reviews I get for the chapter the more I'll be compelled to write or continue the next chapter. The stories that get the most reviews are the ones that will get the most focus.


	28. Notice

Hey, everyone, it has been a while since I've updated and I'm sorry for that. I've been a tad bit busy, but I did work on updates for my stories. Unfortunately, for nearly a month I've had viruses making my computer inoperable, but it seems to be working fine now, although I have some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that I'm able to update and write again, so I'll work to bring you guys some updates within the next week or two.

The bad news is that I've lost the work and progress that I've made on all my other stories. I'm going to try to rewrite the majority of my stories, and I remember the plans for pretty much all of my pieces, but it'll take me some time. However, one of my stories I might not rewrite, which would be "Another Bird." I liked the story I had set up for it and everything, but I'm not sure that I want to restart the story from the beginning and I don't remember everything I had planned for it. So, while I'm undecided about remaking that one, I do plan to work on "Robin, The Prince of Thieves", "The Start of the X", "Behind His Smile", the remake of "The True Robin", the sequel chapter of "Why?", and a possible addition to "Curiosity and the Bird."

I hope that everyone had a nice break, I know it's a little late but Happy Thanksgiving. I'll get back to writing now.


	29. Partnership

**Direct continuation**

"Soo, why did you want to talk up here?" Beast Boy asked, curiously.

"You mean that you didn't notice we were being surrounded?" Red X questioned back.

"Huh?" Beast Boy said, confused. "They were just fans."

"It's just easier to talk without all the prying eyes and ears." Red X replied as he checked the surroundings. He didn't see anyone, which he was happy for.

"What did you want to talk about?" Beast Boy asked. "Oh, I know! You want me to be your sidekick, right?!" Beast Boy said with a giant, hopeful and eager smile on his face.

"Heh, whoa, hold up" Red X replied, "slow down a little bit. Let's just talk for now."

"Oh, sorry." Beast Boy said, blushing slightly from embarrassment as he scratched the back of his head. He knew that he jumped the gun. "Well, what about?"

Starting off simply, Red X asked: "Well, for starters, what brings you here, to Jump city?"

"I was just travelling around and ended up here." Beast Boy answered, "I used to be in the Doom Patrol."

"Okay and why – "Red X started, but was cut-off by Beast Boy.

"Hey, it's my turn to ask you a question." Beast Boy said, as he stuck his tongue out at Red X.

"Oh, okay, well what do you want to know?" Red X replied, he was actually in a good mood. Beast Boy was interesting and entertaining.

"Hm.." Beast Boy said out loud. "I don't know what to ask, so I'm just going to ask why you chose to be called 'Red X'"

"Well, honestly it's just sort of a color and letter mix. I like the color red, and the letter X tends to represent the unknown. Plus, I thought it sounded cool." Red X answered with a laugh, it sounded silly to explain it to someone else.

"Ooh, that's cool. I'm called 'Beast Boy' because I turn into different animals, and 'Beast Boy' sounds better than 'Animal Boy', don't you think?" Beast Boy said with a laugh. "I almost forgot, if you want to you can called me 'BB'"

"Heh, okay, BB, why do you wear a mask?" Red X asked, curiously. He was slowly slipping out of his Red X persona and into his chattier Robin persona. It had been a while since he had a nice, long, and casual conversation.

"What do you mean, 'why?'?" Beast Boy asked, astonished. "It's to protect my secret identity of course."

"But you're green? Or can you change your skin color too?" Red X asked, intrigued.

"I never thought about that." Beast Boy said as he thought deeply over the situation. "I can't change my skin color, I'm green."

"Then why do you need the mask?" Red X asked.

"I… don't…. know…" Beast Boy said hesitantly, "Should I take it off?"

"Yeah, probably." Red X said.

"Well, okay, I guess, but I thought it looked cool." Beast Boy said as he pulled on the mask to remove it. Once the mask was removed, Red X saw that Beast Boy also had dark green hair and pointed ears.

"You definitely look cooler without the mask." Red X said as he grinned at Beast Boy.

"You really think so?" Beast Boy asked, hopeful.

"Yeah, definitely." Red X replied, certain.

The two continued talking for a couple hours, because no trouble came that the police weren't able to handle. They learned that both of them enjoyed similar games and movies. Both thought that they could beat each other if they were to have a contest. Throughout the talking, it became apparent to Red X that Beast Boy was alone and had nowhere to go. Red X was tempted to ask Beast Boy if he wanted to stay with him, but then he wasn't so sure if he should. Batman trained him to be cautious, but Batman had also taken him in when he needed somewhere to go. So that is just what Red X decided to do, he would offer Beast Boy the choice of staying with him.

"Hey, Beast Boy," Red X started. He waited to ensure he had the other boy's attention.

"Yeah, X?" Beast Boy asked curious.

"Do you want to be my partner?" Red X asked.

"What?! Do you mean it?" Beast Boy asked, excitedly.

"Yeah, if you want, then we can be partners." Red X confirmed.

"Wow, this is awesome! I promise that I won't let you down, sir!" Beast Boy excitedly said.

"Just don't call me sir, okay?" Red responded.

"Sure thing, when do I start? Oh and where will I stay?" Beast Boy asked, speaking his mind.

"Well, I'd assume that you'd stay with me at my place." Red X answered, "But we'll need to get some communicators, sometime."

"Really?! That's awesome, we can be the 'Dynamic Duo' of Jump City!" Beast Boy said excitedly. The reference to his old partnership made Red X slightly uneasy, but he didn't show it.

"It's good to see you're excited, and we can begin today." Red X said, ignoring Beast Boy's reference.

"Awesome! What's first? Our group name? Or are we going to catch a bad guy?" Beast Boy said eagerly, he was practically jittering on the spot.

"First, I introduce you to the base, and then we train to get in synch." Red X said matter-of-factly.

"All right, let's go now!" Beast Boy said as he jumped up, ready to begin.

"Okay, follow me." Red X said as he went to go back onto his X-cycle. "Just be inconspicuous, we can't be followed."

"Okay." Beast Boy said as he turned into a chameleon, "I'll just ride on your motorcycle with you."

Once Red X and Beast Boy were on the motorcycle, Red X put it in camouflage mode and drove to his base, made sure they weren't followed and entered through a hidden entrance.

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**A/N:** Sorry about how long it took and the shortness of the chapter. I was apparently wrong when I thought that my computer was fixed last time. I promise to try to make next chapter come out longer than this one is. Also, **Another Bird** is up for adoption. So, if anyone wants to take over that story, then they can, because I'm not really up to rewriting it.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and I hope you all continue to review, because they help me to write. Next up on my update list is likely "Robin, Prince of Thieves."

**And** it seems that right as I'm trying to post the update the virus is back again -_-.


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